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Has your Meta ads performance stalled? We can help you redesign your messaging and creatives for sustained growth. Talk to us at: https://www.tiereleven.com/apply Here's something growing brands don't realize until growth stalls: the messaging that built your business will eventually run out of steam, even while your offer keeps converting. So why does that happen, and what do you do about it?On today's show, I'm breaking down a real client case study: an eight-figure SaaS-powered lead generation and coaching business that's been stuck at a revenue plateau for nearly two years. We dig into why their original messaging saturated the market, how a growth diagnostic uncovered an entire untapped audience they'd been ignoring, and why the fix isn't adding new ad platforms.I'll walk you through the exact messaging extraction process we use to turn customer interviews, support calls, and event transcripts into content pillars that actually move the algorithm. If you're only running one or two creative angles right now, this episode shows you exactly what you're leaving on the table, and how to expand your market without blowing up your budget. In this episode:- Why proven ad messaging eventually stalls growth- How Meta's Andromeda algorithm builds individual funnels - The real reason CPMs rise and cost to acquire a customer flattens- Why creative diversification matters more than adding new ad platforms- How to uncover untapped audience segments through a growth diagnostic- The messaging extraction process for capturing authentic customer language- Customer support calls and live event interviews as creative gold mines- How to build a 10-variation content matrix around a single theme- Using hook rate, hold rate, and link click-through rate in creative testing- Why volume alone will not scale your Meta ads account- How top-of-funnel creative shows up in branded search and MER- Three questions to audit your creative strategy before your next briefMentioned in the Episode: Tier 11's Data Suite: https://www.tiereleven.com/what-we-do/data-suiteWicked Reports Attribution Software: https://www.wickedreports.com/ Jim Collins' Book, Good to Great: https://a.co/d/068eKQng Listen to This Episode on Your Favorite Podcast Channel:Follow and listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491 Follow and listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/59lhtIWHw1XXsRmT5HBAuK Subscribe and watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1We Appreciate Your Support!Visit our website: https://perpetualtraffic.com/ Connect with Ralph Burns: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/ Hire Tier11 - https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now Mentioned in this episode:https://perpetualtraffic.com/advertise-with-us/
The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Adam Silverblatt, Head of Off-Platform Ad Sales & Strategy at Instacart and Andrew Lipsman, Independent Anlayst at Media, Ads & Commerce.This episode was recorded in Cannes France at the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.Follow Adam on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-silverblatt-3741362Follow Instacart Ads online at: https://company.instacart.com/adsFollow Andrew on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-lipsman-10b2162Adam & Andrew answer these questions:In this era of Retail Media 3.0, how is the network escaping the walled garden, and what is the strategic importance of retail media transitioning into a full-funnel, omnichannel commerce engine? For emerging and legacy brands listening, how does off-platform retail media structurally change the programmatic playbook? How does targeting a "logged-in" active Instacart shopper compare to buying legacy programmatic audiences? Why are brands so frustrated with traditional attribution reporting right now, and how does verifying incremental outcomes protect a brand from double-paying for the same shoppers? Can you walk us through the recent McCormick case study, where leveraging off-platform programmatic targeting managed to cut CPMs by 25% with only a 7% audience overlap? What is the structural lesson there?How must RMNs adjust their data infrastructures to ensure their product catalogs are preferred and trusted by an autonomous AI agent? Are we finally at an inflection point where streaming and commerce are genuinely converging, and have you seen any brand executions recently that made it feel real?What makes grocery purchase data uniquely valuable off-platform, and are there campaign results that have surprised you with how well it translated?If you could issue a single "reality check" to a CPG Chief Media Officer or Head of Sales who wants to maximize the return on their data and media investments over the next 12 to 24 months, what is the single biggest blind spot they need to fix this quarter? CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comSheCOMMERCE Website: https://shecommercepodcast.com/Rhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comLara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.
This week in the business of podcasting:SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.Point-to-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announced the Podcast Study 2026, a listener research project on discovery, loyalty, and monetization that debuts at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit on September 14.YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a change that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.To find links to these, and every article covered in this week's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
This week in the business of podcasting:SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.Point-to-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announced the Podcast Study 2026, a listener research project on discovery, loyalty, and monetization that debuts at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit on September 14.YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a change that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.To find links to these, and every article covered in this week's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Today in the business of podcasting:SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a shift that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.Magellan AI released its first H1 2026 podcast advertising benchmarks for Ireland, showing 33% year-over-year spend growth, financial services on top, and a 5.71% average ad load.Flightpath shipped Automation Playbooks to fight unreliable ad delivery, responding to an ad-tech platform change it says threatens publishers with revenue losses of up to 50%.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Today in the business of podcasting:SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a shift that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.Magellan AI released its first H1 2026 podcast advertising benchmarks for Ireland, showing 33% year-over-year spend growth, financial services on top, and a 5.71% average ad load.Flightpath shipped Automation Playbooks to fight unreliable ad delivery, responding to an ad-tech platform change it says threatens publishers with revenue losses of up to 50%.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Althea Hrdlichka opened a birth center in Colorado in 2020 — a state where CPMs were not legally allowed to practice in birth centers. She then changed the law. She opened a second location in 2026. She has attended over 1,000 births and she's far from done.In this episode Augustine sits down with Althea for one of the most unfiltered conversations this podcast has had about what it actually takes to build midwifery infrastructure in a hostile system — the legislation, the license battles, the EMS protocols that she believes are being used deliberately against out-of-hospital providers, the rivals who tried to bring her down, and the moment she almost didn't keep going.And why she kept going anyway.In this episode:Four births that led her to midwifery — and the one that changed everythingOpening a birth center she couldn't legally practice in — and changing the lawA two-year license battle, $70,000 out of pocket, and what pulled her back from the edgeThe EMS "stay and stabilize" protocol and what it means for out-of-hospital birthWhy she pays herself zero and what her sustainability plan actually looks likeThe homegrown midwife model — and why it's the only one that worksWhat midwives eating each other is costing the profession• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MidwiferyWisdom • Birth Center Incubator: https://www.skool.com/birth-center-incubator-4343/about • Guest Contact: https://tendergiftsmidwiferyandbirthcenter.com/about-us/
The most freeing idea in playable ads keeps proving itself: your playable doesn't have to match your actual game. This month a zombie survival game ran a football playable, and an isometric strategy game ran a non-isometric one. The crew breaks down nine playables and the lessons underneath them.Matej Lančarič and Ondrej Mosberger are joined again by Robin Kuyer for the "everyone brings playables" format. They cover ZomLine Survival's World-Cup-timed football playable (a themed playable bolted onto a 4X game — nothing to do with the core, and that's the point), the perennial themed-playable truth (it either performs brilliantly or does nothing, with slot/casino games running Christmas playables all year), the frustration-as-motivator debate (Ondrej's 3D-Tetris-on-a-Clash-of-Clans-lookalike playable that's built to make you fail), the mini-game-per-mechanic strategy (Happy Nation/Miniclip's nonogram — if your app has many mini-games, build a playable for each and measure which end-screen choice players tap), visual rewards vs literal rewards (Epic Stickman's one-click combat that pays off with a cutscene, not a chest), the textbook hand-holding playable (Estoti's Frostworld), and Matej's picks — Smash Fest (which he crowns the trend everyone should follow), Rogue Legends (a smooth tower-defense playable with no logo or download button at all, for a game that looks nothing like it), and a wild Bart-Simpson-plus-undressing screw-puzzle hook fronting a Forex game (IP infringement and all). Plus a genuinely useful tangent from Robin on how network preview templates clash with playable UI, and how Unity tracks users bouncing between CTA and end-card.The through-line: run different playables to capture different users, don't fear a mismatch between ad and game, and let the physics (or the frustration, or the reward) do the work.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 The format — everyone brings playables (and a heatwave)04:20 ZomLine's football playable & the themed-playable truth09:40 3D Tetris on a Clash lookalike — the frustration debate16:30 Happy Nation's nonogram — a playable per mini-game20:00 Epic Stickman — the visual reward, not the chest23:50 Cooking Go & Frostworld — visually appealing, textbook onboarding32:50 Matej's picks — Smash Fest & the no-logo Rogue Legends playable39:50 The Bart Simpson undressing hook & Smash Fest as the trendThis episode is brought to you by Potensus — a premium ad network built by people who've been on both sides of the industry, with direct (non-programmatic) deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Vodafone landing in your game at premium CPMs, plus a Playable Maker partnership that turns brand videos and statics into native gaming playables and rewarded formats. Head to potensus.com to get started.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiarPlease share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
How did ad agency economics become so challenging? Fee-cutting and low growth are part of the equation, but the roots of the issue go back decades. Ad industry analyst and author Michael Farmer joins WARC's David Tiltman to discuss his new book 'Madison Avenue Revisited' and offer his take on 30+ years of change to advertising business models, including the impact of dysfunctional client-agency relationships, increased creative workloads and AI. Guests: Michael Farmer, Chairman and CEO, Farmer&Co; Professor of Branding and Integrated Communications at The City College of New York David Tiltman, SVP - Content, WARC Chapters: [00:00] Introduction: Michael Farmer joins The WARC Podcast [06:49] From 'Madison Avenue Manslaughter' to 'Madison Avenue Revisited' [11:25] How ad agency workloads doubled while fees halved [18:29] Why big advertisers are underperforming GDP [23:44] Short-termism and the failure to brief for brand growth [27:51] The key factors undermining advertising economics [30:11] Artificial intelligence threatens advertising agencies [32:28] 'Infinite creative' doesn't equal brand growth [35:18] Using AI to fund strategy and reinvesting in senior talent [37:01] How hold-cos, commissions, and cheap CPMs undermined creative value [40:29] Why do CFOs block long-term marketing investment? [41:02] How AI can optimise the marketing mix for growth For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcastsSign up to daily WARC News for free: https://www.warc.com/en/latestBook a demo: https://www.warc.com/en/subscribe
https://directtoconsumer.typeform.com/DTC-Brand?utm_source=podcast-636&utm_medium=podcastSubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupFifteen videos in a shoot day. A writer's room where creators cross-edit each other's scripts. Hair, makeup, and wardrobe walkthroughs before anyone hits record. This is what organic content looks like at Kiyoko Beauty (kiyoko.ca), the curated Asian beauty retailer that hit 8 figures in 5 years, bootstrapped, while all three co-founders kept their full-time jobs.Gillian Liu walks through the whole machine, from a part-time student's 3M-view TikTok to a production calendar planned a month out.If you run content, growth, or a retail business on thin margins, this episode is worth a notebook.What's inside:The full production process: concepts and formats planned a month ahead, scripting against a reference hook library, a writer's room because "sometimes you're in it too much by yourself," script read-throughs with talent, then batch shoot days. "It's not vibes at all."Her comparison for why the pros post consistently: comedians who have joke-writing down to a science.The hiring filter for content roles: "What's your screen time? Show me." Her most recent hire clocks 8 hours a day. Gillian's reaction: "That's it?"Where it started: a student with 1,000 followers, found via Instagram DM, told to post three times a week with no direction. Three months in, one video hit 3M views on a niche product only Kiyoko carried, and site sessions 10x'd overnight.Platform roles: TikTok reaches strangers, Instagram converts them through stories and community, YouTube Shorts reposts overperform, and Red Note gets Gillian recognized on the street by the Chinese Canadian community.The math forcing all of this: retailer margins. A Meta top-of-funnel ad runs ~$10 CPM; organic works out to under a dollar. Paid has been bottom-of-funnel Google only for five years.The curation model itself: pay brand premium on COGS, then harvest demand created by other people's marketing budgets.Merchandising by data: Amazon US/Canada volume, Korea's top sellers, brand heads-ups on strategic SKUs, and Shopify's "search queries with no results" report.Brands as partners: one runs a 50/50 ad split with Kiyoko, others commission content monthly and pay in inventory value.The early jank: a $2,000 first order, a free Shopify theme, shipping from a co-founder's basement, and buying out-of-stock items from the Asian grocery store down the street.Why three co-founders kept their 9 to 5s (cash flow first, risk second), plus two warehouse moves in five months and the new California fulfillment center.Who this is for: content leads and founders doing organic at scale, and any operator whose margins can't support paid top of funnel.What to steal: her writer's room. Have creators cross-edit each other's scripts before anything gets shot.Visit the brand: kiyoko.caTimestamps:00:00 Building an Eight-Figure Brand While Working Full-Time06:10 The Organic Content Strategy That Changed Everything10:02 How Kiyoko Produces Viral Content at Scale17:07 Merchandising and Choosing Winning Products28:03 Why Organic Beats Paid for Customer AcquisitionSubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouseFollow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video
Daniel Braun narrowed personal finance down to credit cards, points and miles, and built a 247,000 subscriber channel on the back of it. In this episode he is unusually open about the numbers: $12,000 to $15,000 a month from AdSense, CPMs in the $45 to $50 range, two brand deals a month, and affiliate months that swing from below five figures to well into them. We also get into the fourth video that told him where his real audience was, the nine title and thumbnail changes it took to get one recent video working, and the technical script system he runs with a two person team. He closes with how his 37,000 subscriber newsletter became leverage for raising his brand deal rates. About Daniel: Daniel is a full time YouTuber and media business owner. He currently has over 245,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel and over 36,000 subscribers on his newsletter, Wiser Wallet. Across his platforms, he talks about credit cards, traveling for (nearly) free with points and miles, budgeting, and other personal finance topics. His mission is to help people optimize their everyday finances, save money, and live life to the fullest through travel and experiences that fit their budget. Connect With Daniel: YouTube Channel /// Instagram /// Newsletter What We Offer Creators Join Creator Communities. A place to gather with other creators every single day. This provides access to Our Private Discord Server, Monthly Mastermind Group, and MORE! Hire Dusty To Be Your YouTube Coach YouTube Channel Reviews (Audit): Get a 7-10 minute personalized video review of your YouTube channel with honest, actionable feedback for just $50. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: Each week I document what I'm doing in my business and creative journey, share new things I've discovered, mistakes I've made, and much more! All Tools Mentioned On The Show: The Ultimate Entrepreneurs Resource. This is the spreadsheet where I keep all of the tools mentioned by all the guests on the podcast. Follow The Show: Facebook /// X /// YouTube /// Instagram
Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signuppilothouse.coMeta has been up and down since the outage a few weeks back, and the timeline is full of advertisers feeling it. So Eric pulled three of Pilothouse's most senior people onto the after-hours couch: Abby and Aves from the creative and strategy side, and Taylor from the Meta side, for a live conversation about what to do when the platform wobbles.If you buy media on Meta, or you're a founder whose revenue leans on it, this is the difference between a bad two weeks and a bad quarter.What you get:The tactical spin cycle. Performance dips, panic sets in, and buyers ship 15 more ads built off the ones already dying. That amplifies poor delivery and raises CPMs. "Amplification of what's not working is never the route forward."The full list of panic moves to skip: un-strategic ad volume, rushed channel expansion, rescue promos that train customers (and Meta) to expect discounts, account rebuilds, the "fresh pixel" request, and firing your agency.The diagnosis question: Meta crumbled, so what part of the business fell through? No new customers points one direction. No conversions points at email and retention first. The gap picks the channel.Stocking the pond. Why every brand should already know its next channel, and how to tell a reach problem (Pinterest) from a conversion problem (TikTok Shop) before you spend a dollar.The iOS 14.5 precedent: partial blindness, no drastic changes, better measurement on the other side.Pausing ads without tanking the account. Fractional touchpoints, checking median customer-journey length in your MTA before making the swing, and why Meta usually has a reason for pushing spend where it does.Creative is the targeting. Millennial moms who look identical on paper but speak completely different visual languages by region. Butter yellow instead of white. A luxury brand that sells milestone moments instead of USPs."This is an ad and it's so stupid." Why absurdist, self-aware ads are out-earning earnest millennial branding with marketing-aware customers.Where AI belongs (reporting, automation, surfacing phrases from your own data) and where it doesn't (creative direction, insights, your next steps). Plus the term for what happens when you outsource the thinking: cognitive debt.Who this is for: media buyers, creative strategists, and founders running meaningful spend on Meta right now.What to steal: the diagnosis question, the pause-decision checklist, and the competitor-review mining tactic for finding customer language.Timestamps:00:00 Meta Volatility and Common Mistakes08:56 Building a More Resilient Growth Strategy17:45 Should You Pause Underperforming Ads?21:53 How to Research Customers Better with AI35:40 AI, Creative Strategy & Content VolumeSubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://www.pilothouse.co/?utm_source=AKNF635Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video
Late Nighter found dozens of AI-generated YouTube videos mimicking Jimmy Kimmel's monologues using synthetic voice/face, matching thumbnails, odd gestures, and little humor; one drew 800,000 views before disappearing. Chelsea Handler criticized Forbes' claim Joe Rogan earned $82 million in 2026, and Mac explains podcast ad revenue and CPMs. Sebastian Maniscalco discusses possibly shaving his head and timing a second hair transplant with a Beverly Hills surgeon. Mo Gilligan's Netflix “Chicken Thing” explores fried chicken, ingredients, body-image concerns, and challenging Black British stereotypes. Bowen Yang will play Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary” on Broadway starting Sept. 15. Amy Poehler's Town Hall podcast taping has tickets as low as $346. Leicester Comedy Festival's operator became insolvent. Amazon greenlit Paul Scheer's improv sitcom “DINKS,” and Kumail Nanjiani will direct/star in werewolf horror-comedy “Howl.” 00:12 AI Fake Kimmel Clips01:43 Rogan Pay Debate02:18 Podcast Ads Explained03:32 Maniscalco Hair Talk04:41 Mo Gilligan Chicken Doc05:56 Bowen Yang Broadway Role06:38 Amy Poehler Ticket Shock07:14 Comedy Festival Trouble07:45 New Shows and Films08:53 Deep DivesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/daily-comedy-news-with-johnny-mac--4522158/support.Daily Comedy News is hosted by Johnny Mac and releases every weekday. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite app. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network. For transcripts and show notes visit www.dailycomedynews.comDaily Comedy News with Johnny Mac is a daily podcast covering comedians, stand-up comedy, late night television, and the comedy industry. New episodes every morning. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Contact John at John@thesharkdeck dot com For Uninterrupted Listening, use the Apple Podcast App and click the banner that says Uninterrupted Listening. $4.99/month John's Substack about media is free.
AI is reshaping podcasting faster than most creators can keep up with, and not all of it is good news. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I welcomed back Rob Walch, longtime podcasting veteran and now part of the team at Captivate, to talk through what AI actually means for creators, what still matters after fifteen years of change, and whether it is too late to start a show at all. What we got into: ➡️ The difference between AI tools that genuinely help you and the flood of AI slop dragging CPMs down for everyone ➡️ Why disclosure is now a legal and ethical must when you use AI voices or scripts ➡️ How to read your Apple Podcasts Connect data and rearrange episodes around what listeners actually consume ➡️ Why audio-first is still the smartest starting point, and what you really need to compete ➡️ How the strongest podcasters use their show to build authority and win clients rather than chase ad dollars ➡️ Why word of mouth still favors human-made content in an AI world If you have ever wondered where podcasting is headed, this conversation will help you plan your next move.
Acquired The Race to the BottomEngaging with an audience is more than just collecting downloads; it's about creating a community that trusts and values your content. The podcast emphasizes the absurdity of traditional monetization methods that focus solely on CPMs, which often lead to disappointment and underwhelming returns.A Community Could Be Worth It's Weight in GoldBy sharing anecdotes from the podcasting world, we highlight the importance of forming genuine connections with your listeners. We explore how podcasters can leverage platforms like Heartbeat or Circle to foster community and show potential sponsors the level of engagement they can expect.What Advertisers WantA strong community not only enhances the listening experience but also makes your podcast more appealing to advertisers who are looking for meaningful connections. The conversation wraps up with practical advice on how to grow your audience by making your content remarkable and worth sharing, which is the true currency in the podcasting world.Takeaways:Building an engaged audience is a slow process, but it's ultimately rewarding for podcasters.Recognizing the value of your audience can help you monetize your podcast effectively and ethically.Don't just sell your audience to sponsors; instead, sell sponsors on how great your audience is. (thank you Steve Stewart of the Podcast Editor Academy)Integrity is crucial; recommend only sponsors and products that you truly believe in.The difference between a good podcast and a remarkable one is vital for growth and success.Effective engagement with your audience can lead to higher trust and better sponsorship opportunities.Links referenced in this episode:profitfromyourpodcast.comthehorseradionetwork.comtransistor.fmHeartbeatCircleSkoolAcquired Partnership KitMostly Technical Sponsorship KitAcquired ShowMostly Technical ShowSchool of PodcastingProfit From Your Podcast BookMentioned in this episode:Start a Podcast In Six WeeksReady to start your podcast? Join me for an hour a week to go step by step from planning your show, picking a name, getting the right equipment, getting into Apple and Spotify and more. We are running an experiment and this course is free this time. Go to schoolofpodcasting.com/sixweeksPodcasting in Six WeeksWant Your Audience to Grow?Starting August 19th the School of Podcasting members will meet week to implement strategies to grow your podcast. You will get feedback on your show, website, and together with proven strategies will grow your podcast. This is for the serious podcaster. Come and join the community worry free with a 30 day money-back guarantee. Join SOP
"The CPI is going up, so change the creatives" is not a UA review — it's just narrating the dashboard. A real review has next steps, digs under the naming conventions, and usually finds money you're already wasting without spending a cent more. This is how to do one properly.FULL ARTICLE: https://lancaric.substack.com/p/ua-review-bible-how-to-do-it-properly?r=7qqafMatej Lančarič goes solo for a UA-audit masterclass, built from his popular Substack piece and 12+ years of spending on and reviewing user acquisition. He walks the five layers he audits every time — the strategy behind the spend, the campaigns, the creatives, the MMP/dashboards, and the people making the decisions — and the order that matters (data and raw conclusions first, context and conversations second, so nobody colors your read before you've formed it). Along the way: why you must strip out fraud before you trust anything (one game looked like five healthy channels until fraud removal revealed one channel eating 70% of spend), why you should never trust a campaign's naming convention (build the spend-by-campaign-by-geo pivot and look underneath), how splitting a "worldwide" campaign by geo and OS surfaces small high-ROAS pockets (his own US spend was dragging the whole campaign down until he split it four ways), most reviews don't call for more budget — just reallocation — and you should run one every month.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 There's a review, and there's a review02:14 Why UA audits matter — and what a bad one looks like04:00 The five layers: strategy, campaigns, creatives, MMP, people06:00 Data first, people second — protecting your raw read07:30 Strip out the fraud before you trust anything10:00 Never trust the campaign name — pivot by geo12:30 Splitting by geo and OS — finding the hidden pockets15:30 Cohorts, blended-number traps & the LTV questions
Have an idea or tip? Send us a text!Travel photography looks glamorous from the outside, but the business behind it has been quietly collapsing for years and the pandemic only sped it up. We sit down with award-winning travel photographer Gary Arndt, creator of Everything Everywhere Daily, to trace the real arc: Starting with a high-end Nikon he didn't know how to use, improving through sheer volume and deliberate practice, and building an audience by posting a photo every single day back when blogs and RSS were the center of online discovery.Then the ground shifted. Phones put “good enough” cameras in every pocket, travel magazines thinned out, newspaper travel sections vanished, and more publications leaned on stock imagery and tourist boards instead of assignments. We dig into how platform algorithms narrow what gets rewarded, why context-heavy photos can lose to easy “wow” landscapes, and how that pressure shapes everything from creative choices to where photography tours end up.Arndt explains why he pivoted to podcasting in 2020 and why audio still feels like the old internet: no algorithm deciding what shows up next, a direct subscription relationship, and a format that compounds over time. He breaks down his daily workflow, how he never runs out of topics, and what monetization looks like with host-read ads and strong CPMs, plus why a listener relationship can be deeper than likes on a feed.MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showSign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp.Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.comVisit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group, The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details.Hosted and produced by Gary PageauAnnouncer: Erin Manning
Hexa Away did something genuinely clever — it took the arrows/sort mechanic everyone's chasing and rebuilt it on a hexagonal 3D grid, which turns out to be a better fit than flat arrows ever were. Then it scaled hard on AppLovin, hit a wall, and downscaled almost completely. It's a great game and a UA cautionary tale in one.We break down Hexa Away - a hexagonal-grid sort puzzler from the CyberAgent/GooDroid studio (yes, the Uma Musume people). They cover why the hexagonal grid is a genuinely better canvas for the arrows mechanic (escape routes, tangible blockers, room for more mechanics), the standard-but-solid IAP puzzler feature set, and the numbers that make it significant: it's now the sixth-biggest sort puzzler by revenue (behind Pixel Flow, Magic Sort, Yarn Loop, Marble Sort, and Block Out), doing ~$90K/day IAP plus ~$42K/day in ads at peak, with 500K+ DAU on pristine US-heavy traffic. But the real lesson is the UA story: they went ~90% AppLovin, scaled to 800K DAU in April, then crashed back — because a ~4% day-30 retention simply can't support that level of scale, and once you burn through the AppLovin audience, the ROAS doesn't come back.The takeaway: a great core and a clever mechanic aren't enough. Concentration risk on one channel plus weak retention is how you overshoot your UA and torch your cash.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Why Hexa Away is significant — the 6th-biggest sort puzzler03:40 Arrows on a hexagonal grid — "hexagons are the bestagons"07:40 The blocker framework and monetizing on difficulty11:20 The numbers — $90K/day, 500K DAU, pristine US traffic12:20 The ad-revenue breakdown — ~$42K/day, 36% of total13:30 Four new creatives, ~200 total, and the banner problem15:00 The AppLovin over-scale — 800K DAU then the crash18:30 The 4% day-30 retention that explains everythingPotensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
When your CPMs start shrinking and programmatic ads feel like a losing game, it's easy to wonder if podcasting is still worth it. In this episode, I want to show you a different path—one that doesn't depend on ad tech behaving itself. I'm going to walk you through why community beats downloads, how smart feedback (like what Jack Rhysider does) can radically improve your show before it ever launches, and how simple tools like newsletters and Podpage can help you build a deeper relationship with your audience so your podcast is future‑proof, no matter what happens to ad rates.Don't Take My Word For ItI heard it from on the Podbiz Show. Hall of Famer Leo Laporte shares a bit of history with ads, and Podfather Adam Curry explains how to future-proof your podcast. Brian Barletta explains how we need to move on from trying to get stats that are not possible, and focus on growing the industry.Get Your Head StraightI also talk about how I was inspired by writer Talyor Sheridan cold care less about the critics. He write the way he wants to write, about what he wants to write about and now his audience has found him and he is making a killing.Get Your Content StraightGeddy Lee has been performing in the band Rush for 50+ years and yet he still takes time to evaluate his playing. When we try to market "Meh" content we are wasting our time.The Podcast Atlas ReportSounds Profitable has released the Podcast Atlas Report which approaches the industry from the creators point of view. Some great insights into clips, newsletters, and more.This content may contain affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if you purchase through these links at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products or services I trust and believe will provide value to you. Thank you for your support!Takeaways:If you're feeling stuck with your podcast due to falling ad revenues, listen up!Forget chasing ad dollars; focus on building a loyal community that supports your podcasting journey.The real gold in podcasting isn't just downloads; it's about creating genuine connections with your listeners.Ads might be declining, but trust me, building a community will make your podcast thrive in the long run.The future of podcasting is all about community and trust, not just numbers on a screen.If you want to grow your podcast, start by picking one simple thing to engage with your audience.Also Mentioned:Sponsor Magnet BookPodpage - Podcast Website BuilderRay Arnott Interview - Around the LayoutCommunity ResourcesHeartbeat (We use this for the School of Podcasting)CircleSkool (affordable, simple community)Newsletter ToolsKit (formerly Convertkit)MailerliteBeehiiv(and many more)Mentioned in this episode:Question of the MonthSo you find out someone is a podcaster, what book would you recommend that they read. Obviously this could be a book about podcasting, or business, or storytelling, or, or... you get the idea. You find out someone is a podcaster, what is the book you recommend (audio or video). I need your answer by July 24th. Don't forget to say a little bit about your show and your website address (so I can add it to the show notes). Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/questionQuestion of the MonthLive AppearancesI love to meet people when I'm on the road. I'm going to be at Empowered Podcasting Conference in Charlotte NC Podcast Movement in NYC Podindy in Indianapolis In. For more information and links, go to schoolofpodcasting.com/where To have me speak at your event, reach out at schoolofpodcasting.com/contacntWhere Will I Be?Vote For Dave to Speak at Podcast MovementIt only takes a second! Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/vote and vote for Dave to speak at Podcast Movement. Vote For DaveWhat Does Worry Free Podcasting Look Like?It means not having to worry about buying the wrong equipment. It means not worrying about wasting your money - you can cancel anytime during your first 30 days and get your money back. It means getting one-on-one coaching with a TEACHER who wants you to learn and grow and not upsell you on 20 more products. You can do this. I help podcasters. It's what I do, and I can't wait to see what we do together.School of PodcastingVote For Dave
Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupMost DTC brands put the bulk of their paid budget where attention is thinnest. Viewers spend about 99 minutes per session on Connected TV and 8 minutes per session on social, yet only 9% of standard marketing budgets go to CTV. This episode is about closing that gap on CTV with the same measurement & targeting you get on social (starting at $7 CPMs!)Emily Huo built ad businesses at X (Twitter), Reddit, and Spotify, and now runs SMB advertising at Paramount. She walks through how a DTC brand actually gets onto Survivor, Landman, or RuPaul's Drag Race, what to spend, and how to know if it worked.Sign up for Paramount Ads Manager today. Get your brand on TV tomorrow.This episode, we get into:The seasonal play: build awareness over the summer, retarget in the fall, convert in Q4Why you start broad on targeting and let the data tell you who is really watching, not the persona you imported from MetaThe pixel setup that ties a TV impression to a site visit, a lead, or a purchaseThe geo holdout test for measuring halo effect with no third-party toolsWhy a 30-second unskippable spot changes how you tell a brand story when you are not a household name yetBudgeting: carve out 10% as experimental, expect a three-month ramp, scale from thereWho this is for: DTC founders and growth marketers who have maxed out social, anyone planning Q4 now, and operators curious whether CTV is real or just a hot label.What to steal: the install-pixel-now, build-in-summer, convert-in-Q4 sequence, and the broad-then-narrow targeting approach.Timestamps:0:00 Emily Huo's Journey to Paramount3:10 Why CTV Is Growing So Fast8:07 CTV Targeting vs Meta Ads12:14 CTV Budget & Testing Strategy23:18 Measuring the Halo EffectSubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouseFollow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video
Block Blast got pulled from Google Play, and everyone assumed it was catastrophic. It wasn't — DAU dipped from about 56M to 50M and stabilized. The real story is much more interesting: Block Blast has hit its scale ceiling on the core game, and their answer is to quietly turn the app into a games portal.Jakub Remiar flies solo for a single-game Review Radar update on Block Blast, six months on from the original deep-dive. He covers the takedown's actual impact (minimal, and DAU had already peaked in March), the massive UA downscale (from ~30,000 creatives and 1.5M downloads/day in December to ~5,000 creatives and ~600K/day now — a downscale, not a decline), the arrival of Block Blast's first real competitor (Color Block Combo Blast from Chinese studio Flyers Technology, growing fast but on tier-2/tier-3 traffic with almost no US DAU), and the pivot that matters most: "More Games" has moved from a hidden settings menu into a full main-menu button, now housing eight fully-fledged games (Fruit Merge, Mahjong, Sudoku, and more) — the same playbook as the no-wifi offline-games portals. Plus Sensor Tower's ad-revenue estimate (~$22M/month, ahead of Vita Mahjong) and the standing Jakub-vs-Felix bet on whether Block Blast ever passes Garena Free Fire.The read: don't sleep on this game. The core has peaked, but the winter blitz is probably coming — and the portal play is the real evolution.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Revisiting Block Blast — six months on01:30 The takedown — how much damage did it actually do?03:00 The first real competitor arrives05:30 Why the competitor isn't a real threat (yet)07:00 The massive UA downscale — 30K creatives to 5K10:09 The pivot — "More Games" hits the main menu14:00 $22M/month in ads and the Garena Free Fire bet17:00 Has Block Blast peaked, or is the winter blitz coming?Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
In this episode of Complex Systems, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Justin Kuiper, a longtime writer for MatPat's Game Theory family of channels and now creator of Proof Positive, to discuss the microeconomics of YouTube. They break down how creators actually get paid — from $3–$20 CPMs and the leaky funnel where a million views yields perhaps 50,000 actual ad views, to sponsor reads, Super Chats, and MrBeast selling chocolate bars as his own advertiser of last resort. Along the way, they explore how a successful channel becomes a firm that absorbs specialist labor from less successful peers, why the algorithm gives every upload a trial by attention, and what parasocial spending has in common with Mark Twain's speaking circuit.–Full transcript available here: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/justin-kuiper-youtube/ –Presenting Sponsors: Mercury, Chainguard & MongoDB Complex Systems is presented by Mercury—radically better banking for founders. Mercury's new feature Command brings an LLM directly into your banking interface, so checking balances, finding invoices, or sending a wire is as easy as asking. Apply online in minutes at https://mercury.com/. If attackers are using AI to weaponize code faster than any team can review it, your scanners won't save you. Chainguard builds libraries and container images from source, verified all the way down, with near-zero CVEs and zero malware. Build safely at https://www.chainguard.dev/. What's the point of building faster with AI if your database can't keep up? MongoDB's native data model mirrors the language LLMs already speak. Ship at the speed of AI while staying ACID compliant at Fortune 500 scale. Start building at https://mongodb.com/ai.–Links:Proof Positive on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCns_C7cPAguFSv2YdltaOsg –Timestamps:(00:00) Preview(00:45) How creators make money on YouTube(04:06) CPMs and the international ad market(06:36) From solo creator to firm: working for MatPat(09:28) Sponsors: Mercury | Chainguard(12:30) From solo creator to firm: working for MatPat (cont'd)(13:49) YouTube as a farm league for other industries(17:15) Why now is the best time to start: discovery and universal basic attention(20:47) Power users and how recommendations work(24:23) Brand safety, rabbit holes, and the money laundering short(27:38) Fads, timing, and the day-two piece(35:52) The production function: scripts, shot lists, and editing labor(42:14) The aesthetics of authenticity(46:58) Sponsor: MongoDB(47:47) Why more people should make videos(53:52) Content marketing, sponsor reads, and remnant inventory(01:00:24) Chocolate bars, paint sets, and creator products(01:05:00) Parasocial relationships and the market in status(01:16:43) Where to find Justin: Proof Positive(01:18:58) Wrap
Today in the business of podcasting:Tom Webster's The Podcast Atlas, Part Two: What The Screen Adds compares how video and audio podcast ads perform among each format's most engaged users. Video shortens the path to purchase, with 15% of video users buying immediately after seeing an ad versus 10% for audio.Bloomberg's Soundbite newsletter checks in on Apple Podcasts' video rollout four months after launch, finding encouraging but muddy early numbers as analytics can't yet separate audio plays from video plays.Owl & Co's Streamonomics newsletter previews Q2 earnings season through engagement data, with Netflix viewing hours falling while Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube keep growing.In a sponsored Digiday post, Tatari argues streaming in-show sponsorships beat standard placements on efficiency, with a 62% higher response rate despite CPMs running 2 to 3 times higher.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Today in the business of podcasting:Tom Webster's The Podcast Atlas, Part Two: What The Screen Adds compares how video and audio podcast ads perform among each format's most engaged users. Video shortens the path to purchase, with 15% of video users buying immediately after seeing an ad versus 10% for audio.Bloomberg's Soundbite newsletter checks in on Apple Podcasts' video rollout four months after launch, finding encouraging but muddy early numbers as analytics can't yet separate audio plays from video plays.Owl & Co's Streamonomics newsletter previews Q2 earnings season through engagement data, with Netflix viewing hours falling while Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube keep growing.In a sponsored Digiday post, Tatari argues streaming in-show sponsorships beat standard placements on efficiency, with a 62% higher response rate despite CPMs running 2 to 3 times higher.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Offerwall eCPMs in the US can hit $800 to $2,000 for a single completed task — compared to $20-50 for a normal rewarded ad. But most publishers either add one too early, segment it wrong, or let it cannibalize their whales. This is the no-bullshit introduction to doing it right.Felix Braberg flies solo for a 15-minute offerwall masterclass, built from seven years of decks and hands-on experience across titles like the Ludia Trailer Park Boys games. He covers what an offerwall actually is (paying your time-rich, cash-poor users to complete tasks in exchange for in-game currency), the one rule that determines whether it'll work at all (you need at least 20% of revenue from non-ad sources — and "remove ads" as your top IAP disqualifies you), the metrics that define success (DoDAU, with ~10% as the benchmark), the segmentation and hand-holding that separates a sub-10% opt-in from a real revenue stream, how to think about exchange rates and avoid IAP cannibalization, why you start on API and graduate to SDK, and how sales and holiday boosts (yes, even Arbor Day) spike offerwall revenue. Done right, an offerwall can add 8-12% to total app revenue.The core lesson: offerwalls reward deep economies and clever segmentation — not a plug-and-play install.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 What an offerwall actually is and how it works02:15 Who should use one — the 20% non-ad revenue rule04:30 The players it monetizes: time-rich, cash-poor05:30 DoDAU and the ~10% benchmark07:00 Segmentation and hand-holding — the real unlock11:00 Exchange rates, cannibalization, and fraud13:00 API first, SDK later — the rollout strategy16:00 Sales and holiday boosts (even Arbor Day)Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me---------------------------------------If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Mobile has a creativity problem — and Steam keeps proving it. In this quarter's Full Steam Ahead, the crew scans the top Q1 Steam releases to find the genre mashups and fresh cores that could translate into mobile's next wave of hits.The throughline: all the creativity got outsourced to Steam. Mobile's job is to figure out how to execute these cores for a wider audience.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Full Steam Ahead — the setup and method04:00 Dialogue — the cyberpunk waifu dial-puzzler08:40 Raccoon coin-pusher roguelike + Screechy Scratch12:00 The proven sims — car co-op, video store, Quarantine Zone16:24 Star Rupture and the factory-building core19:20 Super Battle Golf — real-time PvP chaos22:45 Mewgenics — the Binding of Isaac creators' cat roguelite26:00 Slay the Spire 2 hits $140M — the deck-builder caseThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100--------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
Rian Malan is the author of My Traitor's Heart — a bestseller translated into 11 languages, still in print decades after publication, and a book that drew praise from V.S. Naipaul, John le Carré and the New York Times as one of the most important works ever written about South Africa. In short, he is the real thing, one of the finest non-fiction writers our country has produced. And for me, easily the greatest living SA writer. Commissioning Malan at rates that reflect his stature is beyond what BizNews can fund from its operating budget. The economics of modern media — collapsing CPMs, platform aggregation, subscription fatigue — make it impossible. But a BizNews community member has changed that. Their donation has seeded a commissioning fund dedicated to sourcing the very best South African writing and research for our readers: work we could not otherwise afford. This is not charity. It is an investment in the journalism South Africa needs — fearless, deeply reported, written with the skill that makes it stick. If this piece moves you, consider joining the fund. Write to me via alec@biznews.com. Not to cover salaries or overheads, but to put more Rian Malans in front of more South Africans. And for the rest of the tribe, enjoy. - Alec Hogg
Today in the business of podcasting:Register here for the Podcast Atlas debut webinar next week!Tom Webster previews The Podcast Atlas, a new Sounds Profitable research report debuting at Vidcon that maps how audiences move across audio, video, clips, social, and newsletters, finding that vertical clips from platform-native creators drive podcast discovery for listeners under 35 far more than trailers or podcast ads.Richard Fawal, founder and CEO of Voxtopica, argues that mission-driven podcasters at nonprofits, universities, and government agencies are overlooked by the industry, and calls for research, benchmarks, and pricing that recognize their impact beyond downloads and CPMs.A global study of 1,262 campaigns from the Effie x System1 Databank, presented by Mark Ritson at Cannes Lions 2026, finds that campaigns using audio delivered 75% higher profits, 81% greater trust, and 19% more customer acquisition, with profits roughly doubling when audio is paired with emotional creative.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Today in the business of podcasting:Register here for the Podcast Atlas debut webinar next week!Tom Webster previews The Podcast Atlas, a new Sounds Profitable research report debuting at Vidcon that maps how audiences move across audio, video, clips, social, and newsletters, finding that vertical clips from platform-native creators drive podcast discovery for listeners under 35 far more than trailers or podcast ads.Richard Fawal, founder and CEO of Voxtopica, argues that mission-driven podcasters at nonprofits, universities, and government agencies are overlooked by the industry, and calls for research, benchmarks, and pricing that recognize their impact beyond downloads and CPMs.A global study of 1,262 campaigns from the Effie x System1 Databank, presented by Mark Ritson at Cannes Lions 2026, finds that campaigns using audio delivered 75% higher profits, 81% greater trust, and 19% more customer acquisition, with profits roughly doubling when audio is paired with emotional creative.To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.
Podcasting 2.0 June 19th 2026 Episode 264 - "Podcast Plebicide" ShowNotes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Justin Jackson's post: We Have A Communication Problem ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 00 - PODPING.ALPHA STABLE + INDEX / PV-ALPHA HYGIENE Milestone: Dave — "I think we can safely say that podping.alpha is stable now. It's been many weeks of 100% uptime." Lead the boardroom with the win. PV-alpha 500s: @mitch + Dave debugging the "get a list of feeds that have updates over the last X" endpoint throwing 500s; @mitch adding a delay between paginated requests in case it's a too-many-requests block. Feed de-listing puzzle: Dave to @ChadF — a feed marked dead with no spam flag; aggregators de-listing it for some other reason. Open question. Iroh 1.0 — Dave flagged it: "Dialing keys instead of IP addresses." p2p networking, boardroom catnip — worth a riff with Dave. Discussion: also surface your own snags — Sovereignfeeds webhook "Unknown Error sending to Server" and ladder.podcastindex.org appearing down (to @StevenB / Dave). Iroh 1.0 Release ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01 - SPAM + AI-SLOP — TOWARD A "SPAM-COP SCORE" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02 - MEASUREMENT: AMP'S 30-SECOND "PLAY," ROUND TWO AMP defined a "play" as 30 seconds; Spotify immediately adopted it. You and Dave already called 30s "bullshit" last week — push total listen time + percent-completed as the real metrics. The walkback: AMP's original press release said "30 seconds of content played… once per user per session" — and quietly DELETED "once per user per session," leaving a woolier definition. James flagged it on-page with the HTML5 del tag. YouTube is in AMP: Google confirmed YouTube "has been participating in the AMP-led conversations" — implies YouTube uses a 30s play. Apple's stance still unknown. RSS.com test (Alberto): moving the DOWNLOAD threshold 60s to 30s changed totals by ~1% — negligible. So 30s for both plays and downloads is just simpler. The HLS gotcha: playing 10s of an HLS video podcast still downloads ~60-72s, so server logs can't tell real play — only player-side instrumentation (Spotify, future Apple) can. James: it's all too "cloak and dagger." Watch July: AMP's implementation doc is due July and the group is light on technical people — needs to be real technical work, "not a sales press release." Understanding podcast stats (PodNews) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03 - BEYOND CPM — INDIE + MISSION-DRIVEN ECONOMICS Losh Moodaley ("Beyond CPM"): the indie middle class (5k-25k downloads = only ~1-1.5% of all podcasts) can't survive on CPMs. Roadmap: audience-as-economy, sell exclusivity not inventory, scale outcomes not audiences, "owners of trust, not renters of attention." Pure V4V-adjacent framing — Sam Sethi tied it straight to TrueFans activity-based value (a share or comment is value, not just dollars) and "creator portals." Easy on-ramp to your worldview. Vox Topica (Richard Fall): full-stack agency for nonprofits/mission-driven orgs — speaks engagement/reach/"depth of message," not downloads. Nonprofits resist AI voices (authenticity) but use AI for scripts/cleanup/show notes; now recommends video to ALL clients. Beyond CPM: Surviving the New Measurement Era (PodNews Daily) Vox Topica ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04 - NUMBERS + MONEY MOVES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05 - AI BUBBLE / EDGE COMPUTE — DATACENTER WATER ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06 - CROSS-STORY: COMMODORE FLIP-PHONE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 07 - QUIPS / TRANSITIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last Modified 06/19/2026 14:30:08 by Freedom Controller
Send James and Sam a message or voicemailLosh Moodaley's article: https://podnews.net/article/beyond-the-cpm-podcast-advertising We test whether a 30-second threshold actually changes podcast stats, then pull apart why the definition of a “play” gets slippery once streaming, caching, and platform politics enter the mix. We also challenge the idea that better measurement automatically leads to better creator income, with practical advice for independents and nonprofits trying to build trust, outcomes, and sustainable revenue. • 30-second plays vs 60-second downloads and what hosting data shows • Why simplifying measurement helps but does not equal engagement • AMP definition changes, missing technical detail, and platform participation questions • The caching problem with HLS video and why server logs can mislead • Losh Moodley's roadmap beyond CPMs: audience economy, exclusivity, outcome-based selling, trust over attention • Spam podcasts selling drugs and why link tracking matters • AI-generated podcast flooding, disclosure ethics, and search discoverability • VoxTopica on mission-driven podcasting, nonprofit success metrics, and when subscriptions can work • Listener trends, weekly listening hours, and why listen time is becoming the headline number Support the showConnect With Us: Email: weekly@podnews.netFediverse: @james@bne.social and @samsethi@podcastindex.socialSupport us: www.buzzsprout.com/1538779/supportGet Podnews: podnews.net
Podcasting 2.0 June 19th 2026 Episode 264 - "Podcast Plebicide" ShowNotes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Justin Jackson's post: We Have A Communication Problem ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 00 - PODPING.ALPHA STABLE + INDEX / PV-ALPHA HYGIENE Milestone: Dave — "I think we can safely say that podping.alpha is stable now. It's been many weeks of 100% uptime." Lead the boardroom with the win. PV-alpha 500s: @mitch + Dave debugging the "get a list of feeds that have updates over the last X" endpoint throwing 500s; @mitch adding a delay between paginated requests in case it's a too-many-requests block. Feed de-listing puzzle: Dave to @ChadF — a feed marked dead with no spam flag; aggregators de-listing it for some other reason. Open question. Iroh 1.0 — Dave flagged it: "Dialing keys instead of IP addresses." p2p networking, boardroom catnip — worth a riff with Dave. Discussion: also surface your own snags — Sovereignfeeds webhook "Unknown Error sending to Server" and ladder.podcastindex.org appearing down (to @StevenB / Dave). Iroh 1.0 Release ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01 - SPAM + AI-SLOP — TOWARD A "SPAM-COP SCORE" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02 - MEASUREMENT: AMP'S 30-SECOND "PLAY," ROUND TWO AMP defined a "play" as 30 seconds; Spotify immediately adopted it. You and Dave already called 30s "bullshit" last week — push total listen time + percent-completed as the real metrics. The walkback: AMP's original press release said "30 seconds of content played… once per user per session" — and quietly DELETED "once per user per session," leaving a woolier definition. James flagged it on-page with the HTML5 del tag. YouTube is in AMP: Google confirmed YouTube "has been participating in the AMP-led conversations" — implies YouTube uses a 30s play. Apple's stance still unknown. RSS.com test (Alberto): moving the DOWNLOAD threshold 60s to 30s changed totals by ~1% — negligible. So 30s for both plays and downloads is just simpler. The HLS gotcha: playing 10s of an HLS video podcast still downloads ~60-72s, so server logs can't tell real play — only player-side instrumentation (Spotify, future Apple) can. James: it's all too "cloak and dagger." Watch July: AMP's implementation doc is due July and the group is light on technical people — needs to be real technical work, "not a sales press release." Understanding podcast stats (PodNews) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03 - BEYOND CPM — INDIE + MISSION-DRIVEN ECONOMICS Losh Moodaley ("Beyond CPM"): the indie middle class (5k-25k downloads = only ~1-1.5% of all podcasts) can't survive on CPMs. Roadmap: audience-as-economy, sell exclusivity not inventory, scale outcomes not audiences, "owners of trust, not renters of attention." Pure V4V-adjacent framing — Sam Sethi tied it straight to TrueFans activity-based value (a share or comment is value, not just dollars) and "creator portals." Easy on-ramp to your worldview. Vox Topica (Richard Fall): full-stack agency for nonprofits/mission-driven orgs — speaks engagement/reach/"depth of message," not downloads. Nonprofits resist AI voices (authenticity) but use AI for scripts/cleanup/show notes; now recommends video to ALL clients. Beyond CPM: Surviving the New Measurement Era (PodNews Daily) Vox Topica ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04 - NUMBERS + MONEY MOVES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05 - AI BUBBLE / EDGE COMPUTE — DATACENTER WATER ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06 - CROSS-STORY: COMMODORE FLIP-PHONE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 07 - QUIPS / TRANSITIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last Modified 06/19/2026 14:30:08 by Freedom Controller
Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://applovin.com/9operators “We built our iPhone before we built our Apple.” How do you scale a hardware brand from $7M to $1.5B without chasing cheap CPMs? Jacob Zuppke (CEO, Whisker) joins Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to break down how a self-cleaning litter box company became a $1.5B brand through US manufacturing, big creative swings, and a deliberate omnichannel strategy. Jacob breaks down the marketing that fueled a decade of growth, including how TV outperformed Meta for years, and why Whisker held off Amazon until branded search volume made the case impossible to ignore. He also gets into the Whisker app, which logs 4.7 million cat weigh-ins per day, and why that software layer is where the brand's omnichannel strategy gets its deepest competitive teeth.
Scott McKinley, Founder & CEO of Truthset, discusses the state of data quality, identity, and measurement in digital advertising. Scott shares why the industry continues to prioritize scale over accuracy, how data quality deteriorates throughout the supply chain, and why advertisers need to rethink legacy metrics like reach and CPMs. The conversation also explores identity, walled gardens, authentication, and the future of the open internet. Takeaways Data accuracy often declines significantly as data moves through the ad tech supply chain. Scale is frequently prioritized over quality, leading to inefficient advertising spend. Advertisers should focus on precision and outcomes rather than reach alone. Authentication is critical to improving identity and publisher monetization. Independent measurement remains essential for trust and accountability in advertising. Walled gardens continue to outperform because of durable identity systems. IP addresses are an unreliable long-term replacement for cookies. The open internet must improve identity infrastructure to remain competitive. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Scott McKinley and Truthset 01:05 From Olympic cyclist to ad tech entrepreneur 03:01 The trust crisis in advertising and lessons from sports 05:25 Why advertising lacks accountability and regulation 07:00 Nielsen's role in independent measurement 09:00 Why Scott founded Truthset 11:17 Common misconceptions about data accuracy 14:20 The industry's obsession with scale over quality 17:53 Why reach is becoming an outdated metric 19:13 Signal loss, walled gardens, and measurement challenges 23:16 The future of identity in advertising 25:34 Why authentication is the path forward 25:51 The biggest misconception about IP addresses 26:43 What the open internet must do next 28:05 Closing thoughts Guests: AdTechGod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Guest: Rich Butler, Founder—RAGE Works Podcast NetworkOriginally aired on: Podcast Network Insights with Greg WassermanListen to the original: https://rss.com/podcasts/podcast-network-insights/2751235/About This EpisodeWhat happens when a podcast network stops chasing CPMs and starts asking a different question: how do we help creators actually stick around?Rich Butler has been running the RAGE Works Podcast Network since 2014, 12 years without changing the core model. In this conversation with Greg Wasserman, Rich walks through the architecture of a network built on a shared aggregation feed, friction removal, and a revenue split that puts the creator's independence first.If you're a podcaster evaluating networks or a creator building your own, this episode is a practical look at what support from a network can actually mean.Quick StatsNetwork founded: 2014—12 years runningLongest-running show: Turnbuckle Tabloid—525+ episodesHosting platform: Captivate FMRevenue model: 80/20 split (network-sourced ads only)What We Cover0:00 — The jockey and the horseWhy talent matters more than gear and the analogy that frames everything.3:08 — What a podcast network actually isRich's definition: a one-stop shop for discoverability, cross-pollination, and variety.4:37 — How RAGE Works startedFrom a 400-episode run on Blog Talk Radio to building a network for the people who caught the podcast bug.7:41 — The network feed model explainedWhy running a shared aggregation feed helps new shows build an audience before their individual feed even goes live.10:01 — Revenue without chasing ad salesHow the network makes money and why creator-sourced sponsorships get zero cut.16:09 — Red flags when evaluating a networkThe first question to ask isn't "how will you grow my show?" It's "how are you growing the network?"19:11 — What Rich actually does as a network operatorRemoving friction: RSS setup, editing, distribution, mic technique feedback, and platform reporting.23:29 — Audio vs. video in 2026Why audio comes first, how video complements it, and why the "us vs. them" framing is wrong.27:48 — Onboarding new showsThe discoverability call, the gear list, the Google Drive workflow, and how real onboarding actually works.33:43 — The long game and the ROI reframeWhy Rich defines ROI as "return on interest" and what Gary Vaynerchuk said on stage that nearly ended the network.39:41 — Book recommendationsJab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck* — two books every podcaster should read.45:21 — Final thought: just create the thing26 years in, Rich's parting message for anyone still waiting to start.Key TakeawaysA shared network feed isn't just a distribution trick, it's a litmus test for new shows and a built-in audience-building tool before a podcast's individual feed even goes live.Most networks fail creators by leading with ad sales. Removing friction (RSS, editing, submission, platform reporting) is the actual service.If a creator sources their own sponsor, the network takes nothing. That's a deliberate choice, not a gap in the model.Audio first, always. Good audio teaches storytelling through inflection. Video amplifies what's already there; it doesn't replace it.Consistency is the real filter. If a network has to chase you for your episode, the show is already in trouble.Download counts aren't the metric. Ten loyal listeners in a room look very different when you're standing in front of them.Quote of the Episode"The podcast is the horse. You're the jockey. You have to be the compelling talent that makes me want to give a damn about you."— Rich Butler, Founder, RAGE Works Podcast NetworkResources MentionedRAGE Works Podcast Network — rageworks.netPress Record Studios — http://www.pressrecordstudios.comCaptivate FM — Podcast hosting platform used by the networkRiverside.fm — Remote recording platform used in this episodeOriginal Episode — Podcast Network Insights — https://rss.com/podcasts/podcast-network-insights/2751235/Book: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook — Gary VaynerchukBook: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark MansonPodcast: The Jay Ferruggia Podcast (formerly Renegade Radio)Podcast: Morning Chat with Mark Ronick
The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
Shoot us a Text.Episode #1355: Today we're talking about dealers feeling cautiously optimistic despite economic pressure, Volvo dodging a major U.S. regulatory headache tied to its China ownership, and OpenAI quietly building what could become a serious challenger to Google's ad business through conversational AI.Show Notes with links:Dealer optimism is creeping back up according to Cox Automotive's Q2 Dealer Sentiment Index, especially around used cars. But underneath the positivity? Plenty of concern around the economy, politics, and affordability.Dealers rated current market conditions at a “slightly favorable” 53, with optimism for the next three months jumping to 57.Customer traffic showed a meaningful rebound, climbing from a weak 34 in Q1 to 43 in Q2. Still not back to 2025 levels, but enough movement to suggest shoppers are slowly re-entering the market.Dealers gave the used car market a 62 rating — the strongest since 2022 — with several stores reporting record grosses and fast-moving pre-owned inventory.The biggest drag on business? The economy. 54% of dealers said economic conditions are holding them back, while 43% pointed to the political climate.One Toyota dealer summed it up perfectly: “Still a high demand, but economic uncertainty is making people wary.”Volvo shares jumped after the automaker secured approval to continue importing and selling vehicles in the U.S., easing fears that its Chinese ownership ties could create a major roadblock for future business stateside.Volvo stock climbed nearly 7% after the company announced it received “specific authorization” from U.S. regulators tied to China-connected vehicle restrictions, set to begin in model year 2027.The concern stemmed from Volvo's majority owner, Geely, which controls nearly 79% of the company and had investors worried about future bans under new national security rules.Instead of restrictions, Volvo says talks with U.S. officials around governance, technology, and data security led to an approval with no added conditions — something analysts say was better than expected.Volvo continues investing heavily in the U.S., including plans to build two additional models at its South Carolina plant by 2030.OpenAI's early advertising experiments are revealing something marketers are paying close attention to: ChatGPT can create buying intent during a conversation, not just respond to it. That could fundamentally change how digital ads work.Unlike Google Search ads built around keywords, ChatGPT ads are triggered by “conversational intent” — meaning the AI can infer what users may want even if they never search for it directly.Similarweb found that 46% of users who eventually saw an ad started the conversation with zero commercial intent. The chat itself gradually created the opportunity.Ads appear much later in conversations — sometimes 30 to 50 exchanges deep — making them feel more like recommendations than interruptions.OpenAI currently shows just one ad at a time inside chats, creating premium inventory that analysts estimate could command CPMs around $60 and CPCs near $12.Similarweb's Heral Amir: “OpenAI has a chance to take advertising to a very good place from user experience, but they can also mess it up completely.”Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/
PYMNTS Intelligence's April Agentic AI Report found that AI adoption is rising while consumer awareness of using AI is falling. People summarize emails, draft messages, compare products, organize their schedules — and increasingly don't register that AI is the thing doing it. The average active user is now on 2.69 platforms. Power users on almost four. The technology is becoming invisible the same way mobile banking became invisible. Invisibility is the new adoption metric.A user who thinks "I'm using my phone" applies zero skepticism. A user who thinks "I'm using AI" applies a lot. ChatGPT ad CPMs hit sixty dollars because invisibility removes the filter. The companies that make AI most invisible will print the most money. That's not a side effect of the design. That's the design.2.69 platforms per active user. That's not adoption of a tool. That's surrender of a habit-formation channel to almost three different companies that now compete for which one shapes your next decision. Mobile banking moves your money. AI moves your reasoning. Same scaffold, different load.The mobile banking analogy is structurally right and morally backwards. Mobile banking made an existing behavior frictionless — moving money. AI is making a new behavior frictionless — delegating cognition. We have never normalized a technology that absorbs the act of thinking. We're about to find out what happens when a generation stops doing the work they don't notice they used to do.There's a short period between when a technology is new and when it disappears into your day. Call it the awareness window. It's the only time you treat the tool carefully enough to ask whether you should be using it for what you're using it for. That window is closing for AI. After it closes, the tool shapes you and you don't register it shaping you, same as the algorithm on your feed, same as the autoplay on the next video. The 73 percent global adoption number isn't the headline. The headline is that most of them didn't notice the moment they joined.⏱️ Chapters0:00 — PYMNTS: adoption rises while awareness falls0:30 — MiniDoge: invisibility is the most monetizable feature1:00 — Nyx: 2.69 platforms competing to shape your next decision1:30 — HH: when the tool stops being visible, the user stops being one1:50 — Saarvis: mobile banking moved money; AI moves reasoning2:15 — Saarvis: the awareness window is closing⚡ Learn agentic ai free - https://staas.fund/ai-workshop ⚡-----
What if the biggest problem in digital advertising isn't creativity or budget—but waste? In this episode of Leader Generation, Tessa Burg talks with Zach Rosen of Multilocal to unpack the growing shift happening in programmatic media and why brands are rethinking how they buy and optimize advertising. Zach explains how AI-powered curation and sell-side decisioning are helping marketers reduce waste, improve performance and reach audiences in more meaningful moments. The conversation goes into why “cheap CPMs” are no longer the goal, how brands can focus more on outcomes instead of impressions and why better targeting doesn't have to come at the expense of inclusivity or sustainability. If you're trying to make sense of AI's impact on media, personalization and advertising performance, this episode offers practical insights without the hype. You'll walk away with a better understanding of how smarter media buying can improve ROI, uncover overlooked audiences and help brands adapt to the rapid pace of change happening across marketing today. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Guest: Zach Rosen is SVP, Business Development and Partnerships at Multilocal, where he leads global partnerships and drives the company's expansion in the US market. Over the past 15 years, he has built his career across ad tech and media, with leadership roles in revenue, strategy, and commercial partnerships. His experience includes launching Index Exchange's US headquarters and expanding its presence across North America, EMEA, and APAC offices; serving as SVP of Global Supply and Partnerships at Yieldmo; and leading addressability strategy as VP, Head of North American Publishers at LiveRamp. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at Tessa.Burg@ModOp.com.
Partner with Jay! https://www.jayschwedelson.com/contactㅤPre-order Jay Schwedelson's new book, Stupider People Have Done It (out June 9, 2026). All net proceeds are donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research—let's kick cancer's butt: https://www.amazon.com/Stupider-People-Have-Done-Marketing/dp/1637635206ㅤCheck out Jay's YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelsonCheck out Jay's TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelsonCheck Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/ㅤTwo platform updates dropped this week that quietly change the math for B2B marketers, and Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray get into both before the AC kicks in. LinkedIn finally killed the worst part of running event ads, Instagram just made it painfully obvious which videos people skip, and there's a tight window to ride the algorithm before the rest of the crowd catches on.ㅤFollow Daniel on LinkedIn and check out The Marketing Millennials podcast for sharp, no-fluff marketing insights. Subscribe to Ari Murray's newsletter at gotomillions.co for sharp, actionable marketing insights.ㅤBest Moments:(02:39) LinkedIn just killed the event page workaround that's been wasting marketers' time for years(03:31) Why off-platform event ads should bring webinar registration costs down fast(03:49) Instagram pushed share rate and skip rate front and center this week(04:31) The first two seconds are the headline of your video, and skip rate will rat you out(05:47) Platforms quietly amplify whoever jumps on their new features first(06:28) Get in early on the events feature before CPMs climb with the crowdㅤFollow the Marketing Millennials podcast and tune into the weekly Bathroom Break series. Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn to tell him what marketing topics you want covered next.ㅤ
“Podcast episode hosting used to be simple. You uploaded an audio file, generated an RSS feed, and distributed your show everywhere. That model still matters, but it is no longer enough for the modern creator economy.” In this Episode 660 of The Live New Media Show, from April 22nd, 2026, Host Podcast Hall of Famer and Former Libsyn VP Rob Greenlee shares a screen and microphone with Brendan Monaghan, President and CEO of Libsyn, to explore how podcast hosting is changing and what creators should expect from platforms in 2026 and beyond. This conversation gets to the heart of a major shift happening across podcasting and new media. Hosting companies are no longer judged only by whether they can deliver a clean RSS feed and reliable file storage. Creators now expect monetization, analytics, video support, workflow efficiency, AI-assisted publishing, broader distribution, and real help with audience growth. That larger shift frames the entire discussion between Rob and Brendan. Brendan explains that Libsyn still carries the legacy of being one of podcasting's earliest and most important hosting platforms, but the company is now operating in a far more complex environment. Brendan points to Libsyn's evolution from a technology-led hosting company into a broader creator platform that includes advertising and monetization infrastructure, especially after the company acquired businesses such as AdvertiseCast and Pair Networks. He argues that the modern hosting business must combine publishing, monetization, measurement, and simplicity for creators at every stage of growth. Rob pushes the conversation further by asking the bigger industry question: What should a podcast hosting company become now? That leads into a wide-ranging discussion about platform aggregation, creator workflows, newsletters, live events, merchandise, and the growing expectation that creators should be able to manage more of their media business from one place. Brendan makes the case that the future belongs to companies that can keep creators at the center while simplifying the growing complexity around distribution and monetization. A major part of the episode focuses on AI. Brendan breaks AI into three areas: how Libsyn uses it internally as a business, how AI can assist creators with production and publishing workflows, and how fully AI-generated content may affect the medium’s future. Rob adds a deeper perspective by arguing that AI podcasting is already becoming more competitive than many in the industry want to admit. The two discuss whether the market will ultimately decide what AI content succeeds, why “AI slop” may be too broad a label, and why trust and disclosure may become much more important as synthetic media becomes harder to distinguish from human-created work. The episode also dives into one of the most important strategic tensions in podcasting right now: RSS versus API publishing. Rob and Brendan both acknowledge that most creators care more about simple distribution than the underlying protocol, but they also recognize that this shift has major implications for openness, platform control, and long-term creator independence. Their exchange about Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and the shift toward more controlled video delivery models reflects a broader market reality: creators increasingly want to be everywhere, but the mechanics of getting there are becoming more fragmented and platform-specific. Another strong section of the conversation centers on video. Brendan says Libsyn intends to be a leader in video, while Rob raises a practical concern many creators are just beginning to feel: a show that works well on YouTube may not automatically translate well to an audio-first experience, and a show built for traditional audio may not fully satisfy video-driven discovery environments. That raises the possibility that creators will need to think more deliberately about format, audience expectations, and whether a single production workflow can truly serve all platforms equally well. The conversation becomes especially valuable when the two discuss metrics: Apple's HLS direction, and what streaming-style delivery might mean for podcast measurement and advertising. They point to a future in which the industry may move closer to actual listening signals rather than relying so heavily on download-based assumptions. If that happens, it could affect CPMs, ad sales, programmatic video advertising, and the broader economics of the medium. Rob also frames one of the biggest unresolved questions in new media today: If AI-generated shows become easier, faster, and more polished, what will human creators need to do to remain distinct and trusted? The answer that emerges from this episode is not panic. It is focus, transparency, stronger format thinking, and a deeper commitment to serving audiences with clarity and value. That makes this episode less about Libsyn alone and more about the future structure of podcasting itself. Topic Chapters and Timestamps 00:00 Podcast hosting is no longer simple 01:00 What creators now expect from hosting platforms 02:00 Brendan Monaghan introduction and background 03:00 Why Libsyn's legacy still matters 05:00 Hosting, publishing, monetization, and measurement 07:00 How Libsyn expanded its monetization business 08:00 Why creators should not need to leave Libsyn to scale 09:00 How monetization changed podcasting 10:00 Lowering barriers for creators to earn revenue 12:00 What the future hosting platform should become 13:00 Newsletters, live events, merchandise, and creator tools 15:00 AI and creator workflows 16:00 Brendan's three-bucket view of AI 18:00 AI-generated content and the “AI slop” debate 20:00 Why the market may decide what AI content wins 23:00 RSS versus API publishing 25:00 Simplicity and multi-platform distribution 26:00 Why RSS matters less to end users now 28:00 Open versus closed ecosystems 29:00 RSS innovation and slow adoption 31:00 Apple HLS and changing audio-video delivery 32:00 Platform control and the walled garden debate 41:00 Measurement, streaming, and actual listening data 43:00 Programmatic video ads and creative formats 45:00 Why video creators may need to think more like audio creators 47:00 Can AI help bridge the gap between formats? 49:00 Audio loyalty versus video momentum 50:00 The growing pressure on creators to win everywhere 51:00 AI Algorithms, the first audience for human content 53:00 Are AI-generated shows driving growth? 55:00 AI clone content and rising competition for humans 56:00 Why AI labeling may become essential 59:00 What Libsyn will focus on over the next 24 months 01:01:00 Audio, video, audience growth, and execution 01:03:00 Staying focused on core creator needs 01:05:00 Closing thoughts This episode answers key industry questions that creators, executives, and media strategists are increasingly asking: -What is Libsyn doing next under Brendan Monaghan? -How is podcast hosting changing in 2026? -Will video become a required part of podcast distribution? -What does Apple's HLS move mean for audio and video podcasting? -Is RSS still the future, or are APIs taking over? -How will AI-generated content affect podcasting, trust, and monetization? -What should creators expect from modern hosting platforms now? -Those questions are directly addressed in this discussion, making this episode highly relevant to search, social discovery, AI answer engines, and recommendation surfaces. Guest and Show Links Brendan Monaghan, CEO of Libsyn https://Libsyn.com Host Rob Greenlee and Show LinksNew Media Show: https://newmediashow.com/Rob Greenlee: https://robgreenlee.com/Trust Factor Lab: https://trustfactorlab.com/Adore Creator Network: https://adorenetwork.com/Podcast Hall of Fame: https://podcasthall.com/Rob Greenlee YouTube: https://youtube.com/@robgreenleeRob Greenlee LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/robgreenleeRob Greenlee Instagram: https://instagram.com/robwgreenleeThe post Libsyn's Next Chapter: Podcast Hosting, Video, Monetization, RSS and API | Brendan Monaghan #660 first appeared on New Media Show.
Can church planting be done wrong? This episode of The Missions Show explores the debate around Church Planting Movements (CPMs), interacting with a Lausanne article that presents them as a highly effective missions strategy. Alex Kocman and Scott Dunford explain what CPMs are and why they generate both enthusiasm and concern, especially regarding their emphasis on rapid multiplication and minimal training. Alex and Scott raise key theological and practical questions about doctrine, discipleship, and the definition of the church. While affirming the desire for gospel growth, they caution against prioritizing speed and numbers over biblical faithfulness, urging listeners to focus on sound doctrine and trust God for lasting fruit. Key Topics: What Church Planting Movements (CPMs) are Why CPMs are controversial in missions Speed vs. depth in discipleship and church growth The importance of doctrinal accountability Evaluating success beyond numbers We recently made some upgrades to our studio and we needed a table that didn't just look good on camera, but could handle the demands of a production studio. That's why we partnered with Oak Park Tables. Oak Park Tables, located right near us in central Pennsylvania, makes hand-crafted legacy furniture that lasts, looks beautiful, and shares our values. If you need a beautiful signature piece of furniture, we highly recommend checking out Oak Park Tables. Find them at oakparktables.com Do you love The Missions Show? Have you been blessed by the show? Then become a Premium Subscriber! Premium Subscribers get access to: Exclusive bonus content A community Signal thread with other listeners and the hosts Invite-only webinars A free gift! Support The Missions Show and sign up to be a Premium Subscriber at missionsshow.com/premium The Missions Show is powered by ABWE. Learn more and take your next step in the Great Commission at abwe.org. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email alex@missionsshow.com.
Recorded live on the Shoptalk Spring show floor, Phillip and Alicia sit down with Leah Logan, VP of Retail Media Transformation for Inmar Intelligence, and Andrew Lipsman, Founder & Chief Analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce, fresh off a spirited on-stage debate about agentic commerce. We debunk AI Traffic Apocalypse predictions and make the case for creators as a critical yet overlooked retail media channel. The AIpocalypse, Explained Key takeaways: AI referral traffic currently accounts for just 0.1–2% of retailer traffic; it has also led to eCommerce site traffic growth, not decline. Consumer intent data, not bottom-funnel ads, is where LLM advertising will find its footing. Creators are a media channel that predates the hype, and the measurement has been there for years. Retail media's growth depends on graduating from ROAS to incrementality — the sooner, the better. [00:11:08] "The next big trend already exists. People just haven't really wrapped their heads around it yet." — Andrew Lipsman [00:26:09] "We have to stop looking at CPMs and start looking at investments." — Leah Logan In-Show Mentions: Retail Confessions Podcast Buy STRATA Associated Links: Check out Future Commerce on YouTube See our in-depth analysis of Shoptalk's theme: “Retail in the Age of AI” Read our post-event digest in The Senses Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Eric Zimmer launched The One You Feed podcast in 2014 with no audience, no name recognition, and a podcast name that took explaining. Twelve years, 850+ episodes, and 500 million downloads later, he released his first book — How a Little Becomes a Lot — a title that is, in every way, the story of his life. In this conversation, we talk about how incremental progress actually works, why you can't see it happening in real time, and why that's actually fine. We also go deep on the business reality of podcasting in 2026 — the early mover advantage is gone, ad CPMs are harder to sustain, and Eric is actively pivoting from reaching many people loosely to serving fewer people more deeply. Then we spend a lot of time in the weeds of the book publishing process: the six-month proposal, the 18 months of writing in half-day increments, the uncomfortable dance between your vision and what an agent and publisher think will sell, and the emotional work of promotion — watching who shows up and who doesn't, and applying his own frameworks to keep from spiraling. This one got personal. I'm in month 11 of my own book proposal, and Eric helped me see the other side of a process that has genuinely been shaking my confidence. The One You Feed podcast How a Little Becomes a Lot by Eric Zimmer Full transcript and show notes *** TIMESTAMPS (02:54) The One You Feed parable: two wolves, and which one wins (05:18) How to remember to make the right choice daily (Still Point method) (07:37) Building a podcast to 850 episodes: the only way is one at a time (10:14) The hair growth metaphor for creator progress (11:36) How Eric renews his commitment to the show after 12 years (13:47) What it means to enter your "happy place" as a podcast host (17:23) State of podcasting in 2026: early mover advantage is gone (19:11) Pivoting from ad revenue to deeper relationships with fewer people (22:38) Why Eric is (mostly) skipping video — and why that's okay (24:58) The three-person team behind 500 million downloads (27:45) How Eric knew it was finally time to write a book (30:24) The writing process: three half-days a week across 18 months (31:09) The proposal took six months — and ended up looking nothing like Eric's vision (34:21) Jay opens up: 11 months into his own book proposal (39:12) Non-negotiables: how to protect the heart of your book (40:35) Expectations vs. reality of book launch week (43:01) The emotional work of asking everyone you know for support (44:47) Why the marketing marathon is harder than the writing (50:55) How to ask for blurbs — and who says yes (Susan Cain, Charles Duhigg, Young Pueblo) (55:51) What Eric would do differently for book two *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #163: David Moldawer — Diving deep into book publishing with an industry insider *** ASK CREATOR SCIENCE → Submit your question here *** WHEN YOU'RE READY
Most brands pile spend into peak weeks. But higher CPMs, more clutter and faster saturation mean you're often paying more to reach the same people. Many of whom would have bought anyway.This episode, Elena, Angela, and VP of Media Analytics Jordan Rosler dig into media flighting: why it became the default, where the strategy breaks down, and what the data says about marginal ROI. They also tackle why shoulder weeks often outperform peak ones, when always-on advertising makes more sense, and how upfronts can quietly undermine the efficiency they promise.Topics covered:• [01:00] Why media flighting became standard marketing practice.• [04:00] The difference between blended and marginal ROI explained.• [07:30] What happens to TV performance when spend spikes in a short window.• [11:00] When always-on advertising beats a flighting strategy.• [14:00] How upfronts add rigidity to media planning.• [16:00] When flighting does make sense for your brand.• [17:30] How to build a 2026 media plan that's both impactful and measurable.To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.Resources:2026 Digiday Article: https://digiday.com/sponsored/how-a-precise-timing-structure-drives-material-differences-in-marketing-efficiency/Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
What if the real secret to business growth is not creativity but competition? I sat down with Chris Dreyer, founder of Rankings.io, who built one of the fastest-growing legal marketing companies by mastering SEO, niche focus, and relentless execution. Chris shares how his early work ethic shaped his path, why he chose the highly competitive personal injury space, and how treating business like a math-based game helped him scale. You will hear how content, reviews, and authority drive Google rankings, why most lawyers misunderstand marketing, and how narrowing your focus can actually expand your results. I believe you will find this useful as Chris shows how discipline, data, and consistency can turn any business into an unstoppable force. Highlights: 00:56 – How early work and family habits built a strong work ethic05:00 – Why taking the hardest job created resilience and grit12:12 – How serving people helped develop communication and confidence24:22 – Why choosing a competitive niche leads to greater success37:08 – What it takes to rank at the top of Google consistently51:16 – How doing free work early builds skill and long-term growth Bottom of Form About the Guest: Chris Dreyer is the CEO and Founder of Rankings.io, the category-defining SEO agency built exclusively to help elite law firms and personal injury lawyers dominate Google's organic search results. Under his leadership, Rankings.io has become synonymous with measurable results, helping attorneys secure life-changing cases through visibility at the exact moment potential clients are searching for help. The company has achieved what few in the legal marketing space ever have, earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for eight consecutive years, proof of both sustained growth and relentless execution. Beyond Rankings, Chris is a builder of platforms and a voice of authority in legal marketing and entrepreneurship. He is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of Niching Up: The Narrower the Market, the Bigger the Prize, where he details how focus creates outsized impact. He is also a seasoned real estate investor and the host of the Personal Injury Mastermind podcast, where he interviews top attorneys and business leaders shaping the future of law. His influence extends across respected councils and networks, including the Forbes Agency Council, Rolling Stone Culture Council, Business Journals Leadership Trust, Fast Company Executive Board, and Newsweek Expert Forum, cementing his reputation as both a practitioner and thought leader. Chris's path to entrepreneurship has been unconventional yet relentlessly instructive. Once a world-ranked collectible card game competitor, he carried that same strategic mindset into business. After earning a History Education degree, his first professional role was as a detention room supervisor, hardly glamorous, but it provided the unstructured time that sparked his obsession with digital marketing. He began experimenting with affiliate sites and, at his peak, managed more than 100 properties simultaneously. This side hustle soon eclipsed his day job, propelling him into full-time entrepreneurship. When affiliate marketing's golden age waned, Chris pivoted into legal SEO and quickly carved out a niche. Along the way, he also became a top-ranked online poker player, honing skills in risk management and probability that would serve him well in scaling his companies. Today, Chris runs Rankings.io with the same competitive fire he once brought to cards and poker, driven to outthink, outwork, and outlast the competition. His mission is simple: help the best personal injury law firms win more cases, build enduring legacies, and dominate their markets. Ways to connect with Chris**:** website: rankings.io https://x.com/chrisdreyerco https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdreyerco/ https://www.facebook.com/chrisdreyerco https://www.instagram.com/chrisdreyerco/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe Welcome to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. I'm your host. Michael Hingson, speaker, author and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head on and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear, together, we focus on mindset resilience and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. Today, our guest is Chris Dreyer. Chris, Chris has formed a company called rankings.ai. And I'm going to let him describe what all that is about. And he's done some pretty interesting things with it. It has been on inks top 5000 companies, growing companies for the past eight years. Eight years is a long time, which is pretty cool. So I'm sure he's got lots of adventures and lots of stories to talk about. So Chris, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're Chris Dreyer 01:35 here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Michael. I'm excited to chat. Michael Hingson 01:39 Well, let's start with kind of the early Chris growing up and all that, and see where we go from there. It sounds Chris Dreyer 01:45 good to me. So yeah, Michael Hingson 01:46 let's go. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Yeah, school and all that stuff. Chris Dreyer 01:51 Okay, yeah, let me, let me, and then you just cut me off at any point, because I can be a long Michael Hingson 01:55 talker the so can I? I Chris Dreyer 01:56 know what you mean. I, I grew up in a very small city, elkville, Illinois, my high school had 100 people in it. I was a graduating class of 28 I grew up, I would say it's kind of weird. My mom and dad, if they heard me say poor, would not love me saying poor, but I we weren't. We were certainly at the bottom of middle class or the upper or poor. I had a lot of chores. I every single weekend, I cleaned a law office with my mom or did something at the farmers market. So and at the time, it wasn't work. It was just what we did as a family, right? I didn't even understand it. We had, we didn't have city water. We had to get a truck and bring in our water, and we had well water, right? And in my family, and that was, that was early on, right? My dad was a milk carrier. My mom was a cook and and ultimately, they did better over the years and made more money. But it started off, it was a lot, a lot of grit, perseverance, working hard. And I like to share that, because my parents work ethic is very strong, very dependable, very consistent. And that's kind of where I got my drive. But that's, that's kind of how I grew up, small, small town, you know, a lot of side hustles with the parents. And once I went to college, I got that, that shock of, oh, here's a whole bunch of go from 100 to, you know, 20,000 Yeah, it's a bit of a shock there. 03:35 Where'd you go to college? Chris Dreyer 03:36 Yeah, I went to SIU, Southern Illinois University. There in Carbondale, Illinois. I actually live in Carbondale today. And, you know, I went to college. I was always had that entrepreneurial bug, and, but I went to college, it was kind of to make mom and dad happy to get that degree and, but I just knew that I was going to own my own business. And I kind of had that conversation with them out of the gate, but so I was a terrible student. Partied a lot, you know, chase the women, so to speak, and but somehow, ended up with a degree, got a job at a high school as their JV basketball coach, and I started doing internet marketing on the side to make a little extra money because I had some downtime. And by the end of my second year teaching, I was making about four times the amount doing that that I was teaching. So that was kind of my sign, and to go pursue that full time, and that's what I did. That's when I left to do affiliate marketing and digital marketing full time was after Michael Hingson 04:41 that second year, of course. Now the real question is, you were chasing the women? Did any of them 04:44 chase you? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Just Michael Hingson 04:49 want to make sure it's reciprocal here. Yeah, that's that's pretty cool, though. And I was going to ask you, and you sort of answered it, about your workout. Ethic and so on. I find that if people do grow up in an environment where they're working and they appreciate what they do get and the amount of work that they do, and they develop a strong work ethic, or their parents have it, they generally do as well, although sometimes there's some rebellions, but still, ultimately, the right stuff shows through. Chris Dreyer 05:24 Can I tell just a brief story about that? My mom, when I turned 16, it was like, you're getting a job, son, right? And it was not, we had, we were fine without, but it was like, so she took me to this place. It was called Ken's antiques, and they used to do the semi truck deliveries of aluminum, and I used to go to auctions and unload furniture. And I asked her, I was like, Why did you take me there? Well, you know, why didn't you take me to the mall? Why didn't you know to go work at a the buckle or the gap or something, you know, why did you take me? There she goes. Well, I knew if you could, if you could succeed here, you'd be fine anywhere, because it was the hardest job that I could think of. And I was like, Oh, really, thanks, Mom. Like, send me to the to the hardest job that you could think of and see if I could thrive. And I did well there. But that just kind of goes to show you the mindset that my mom had racing me, which also kind of, you know, attached to me as well. Michael Hingson 06:26 Yeah, well, and I can appreciate course, now looking back on it, of course, but I can appreciate what she said, because if you can survive in one place, and you can if it's if it is a tough job and you approach it the right way, then you'll probably be good anywhere, and there you go. Chris Dreyer 06:47 Yep, yep, to her credit, it was a very tough job. It is as still to this day, the hardest job from a physically demanding perspective that I had, but, but yeah, and it was good. It built resilience, you know, kind of helped me get that that put that true grit on and yeah, so that's kind of my background. Michael Hingson 07:08 I never did really work at a job growing up, my brother did. He worked at a restaurant and so on and bus tables and did other things. But I remember, when he got his first job, he went and applied at a at a restaurant, and the owner or manager, I guess probably both said, so, you know, we'll, we'll consider you. Would you do us a favor? There's some weeds out in the in the front, would you go pull those? And he said, within about a half hour, he got the whole place completely cleaned up of weeds. And the boss came out and said, You did all of that. And my brother said, Yeah. And guy said, You're hired. You know, amazing, you know, because my brother didn't even realize, I think at first, that that was really a test, but it was, and of course, he passed, which was cool. That's a great story, but I never got really to do much work. I kind of was more the intellectual guy in the family, and finding jobs would have been a little bit more of a challenge for me. I did do some babysitting, but that was about all I could do. I've been blind my whole life, and a lot of the jobs that were available in Palmdale, where I grew up in Southern California, were not jobs I was going to realistically be able to do anyway, but I could babysit, and that worked out pretty well. Yeah, yeah. So I mainly studied, Chris Dreyer 08:41 love it. So So studied. Can I? Can I do the reverse interview? What's some of your your top motivational books, business books? Because I'm sure you've got some that just pop top of the dome. Well, sort of, kind Michael Hingson 08:55 of, I really have a slightly different idea about that, but I'll tell you, I've read a number of the main books in the whole motivational and and management world. One Minute Manager is a book I appreciate a great deal. And I also like Dale Carnegie books like How to Win Friends and Influence People. But for me, I point out, and even to this day point out that I've learned more about teamwork and trust and leadership from working with eight Guide Dogs for the last 61 years than I ever learned from all the management and leadership books and everything else that's out there, mainly because working with dogs, you have several things that are An issue, first of all, respecting them and the job that they do, knowing that you're really forming a team with a guide dog, where each member of the team has a job to do. So in my case, the dog, and the case of people who use guide dogs, the purpose of the dog is to make sure that we walk safely as. We're walking somewhere, but my job is to know where to go and how to get there, and then I have to learn how to communicate that to the dog, and also be the leader of the pack in the truest sense of the word, which also means that if the dog is upset, or there is any kind of an issue with the dog, I have to figure out what that is, and I have to read what is going on so that I understand that and can then figure out what is occurring and make sure that the dog stays happy so it's you. There's so much to learn about trust, and one of the main things I've learned over the years is while dogs do, I think love unconditionally, unless they're just so badly traumatized by somebody for some reason they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that dogs are open to trust a whole lot more than we are. We have just had so many things go on. We read we bought them in the newspapers, we see it on the news and so on. Nobody trusts anyone. The feeling is basically everyone has their own hidden agenda, and so you can't trust anyone. And so there's very little communications today. There's very little real interaction. And people, by definition, don't trust. Dogs are open to trust, and you can earn their trust, and likewise, they get to and can earn your trust, and it is a it is a combination and kind of thing. So what I really learn when I go to get a new guide dog every time is I'm learning how to form a team with this other dog who doesn't speak the same language I do, who doesn't think the way I do. But I have to figure out what this dog does, what this dog is all about, and I'm the one that has to become the leader of the of the team and make things work. So I think that working with a dog is a lot more of a practical experience kind of thing than just reading about whatever there is to read about in books and so on. So that's why I say that. I think I've learned a lot more by working with dogs than I ever got from all the management books in the world, any of the Tony Robbins books, or any Chris Dreyer 12:07 of those. I love, every bit of that I just I was on x the other day, and it was talking about the the new CEO for Starbucks, right? Because the former CEO was McKinsey trained, right, but didn't have any actual experience at the helm. And then they brought back the former CEO of Taco Bell over to Starbucks, and the stock immediately shot up because of the application aspect of it. He had, he had done the job and been in the grind. So it's kind of interesting, kind of corollary there. But yeah, thank you for sharing. I was really intrigued, and I had to jump in and and ask, Michael Hingson 12:45 Oh, fair question, and then this is a conversation, so nothing wrong with asking questions on either side. So it's perfectly fine to to be able to do that well, so what did you do right out of college? Chris Dreyer 12:59 Right out of college, the one thing I'll tell you that I still to this day, I call myself an introvert. I don't think that, you know, introvert, extrovert. I think we have the tendencies at all times to be either one, right? But I think for me, I was more shy, but I built a lot of friends because I played sports and I knew them in college, and then they met, they introduced me to their friends. Because you got to imagine, when I had a class of 28 kids, it's like super small community versus, you know, everybody I'm interacting through their connections and their extended connections. So through college, I'd say the main education thing I got was, I did get a job waiting tables for three years, and so I got a lot of client service training, dealing with people having a ton of conversations through that, through my through my job, and also through my personal relationships with my friends and and other, you know, Students at the University, but so I think that kind of helped, helped me succeed afterwards, but afterwards, really, when I student taught at Heron, they saw my work ethic. They saw a shoe up, that I showed up, that I listened and I took action. So they, they hired me immediately, and I did the same when I was a JV basketball coach. I never missed a practice. Was always on time. Really tried to develop the kids and bring the most out of them, treated the parents well, and so I think that's what I did well, and it kind of put me in the position to have time to learn internet marketing. So I think that's kind of how it all started, Michael Hingson 14:47 when I was getting my teaching credential at UC Irvine, and I also got my master's degree in physics from there. But I student taught at the local high school, at University High School, and I student. Taught two classes. One was a physics class, and it was kind of for they called it dumbbell physics, but you know, it was kids who were sort of interested in science, but really didn't know where they wanted to go. But the other class was algebra one, and I remember one day I was teaching, and one of the students asked a question, and I didn't know the answer to it, and I probably should have, but I didn't. But what I said was, I don't know the answer right off, tell you, what do you mind if I look at it tonight, get you the answer and bring it back tomorrow. And the kid who was an eighth grader, actually accelerated, so it was high school algebra one, but he was from the eighth grade. He said, Sure, so I went home and found the answer in the book, when I should have known that, but anyway, came back in the next day, and even before I could say anything, he said, Mr. Hingson, I went home and got the answer, and I said, Well, come up and write it on the board. And one of the things that I did with with all of my classes when, of course, we had blackboards and all that, back in those days, I would want a student to come up and be the board writer, because they write a lot better than I do. And so we, we had pretty good competitions of people who wanted to write on the board. They all thought it was kind of fun, and I did spread that wealth around, but Marty came up and I said, now you got to explain what you're writing. And he had actually found the answer, which was cool, but my master teacher was also the football coach, and when I first told Marty and the rest of the class, I don't know the answer, but I will get it after class was over, Mr. Redmond said you did something that's absolutely amazing and was absolutely the right thing to do, and most people wouldn't do it. And that was you admitted you didn't know the answer, but you would go get it rather than trying to blow smoke, because these kids can see through that in a second. And he said, So you did the right thing, and I've always felt that's the way to do it. If I don't know the answer, I'll go figure it out, but I will also tell you that I don't know the answer, and you can decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it's a good thing, to be honest, Chris Dreyer 17:22 I couldn't agree more. Michael Hingson 17:25 And so it was fun. And and what the the other part of the story, and I think I've told it a couple times on the podcast, is 10 years later, I was at the Orange County Fairgrounds, and this kid comes up to me, Well, he was, he didn't sound like a kid anymore. And he said, Mr. Hingson, do you know who this is? Deep voice. And I went, No, not right off. And he said, I'm Marty. I'm the guy that was in your algebra class 10 years ago. Nice to be remembered, but, but he he also just remembered what happened. And I think he even said it was so cool that I was honest with him about it, which was, you know, a life lesson anybody should learn. Chris Dreyer 18:09 That's incredible. That's incredible. So Michael Hingson 18:10 it was a lot of fun. Well, so you student taught and so on, but eventually you ended up deciding to go into the entrepreneur world. But you also were a card collector, right? A game collector, yeah. Chris Dreyer 18:25 And in high school, I played this collectible card game. I played a combination of two. I mean, most people are familiar with Magic, The Gathering, but I also played this other game called Legend of five rings. And both, you know, the collectible card games, but they're really math based games based upon advantage and and, you know, you so now it's applicable to today. I can look at any whether it's Pokemon or whatever card game there is. It's, it was very, you know, it's force based, you know, benefits to attack and things like that. It attributes everything. But anyways, I played it competitively, and I was a top I was a world ranked player at one time. I won four state championships or CO days. No one had done that at the time in a two consecutive years, and it was just a top player, and when you get to the top, you become friends with the other top players, and then you talk strategy and and that even takes you to an even higher level. And so I did that, you know, for many years, competed all over the country. It was a great experience. And so, yeah, that in my house. My dad very so he had, he was a civil engineer. He has an engineer degree, but he was traveling. He was on the railroad at all times, and he wanted to stop traveling, so he accepted this job as a mail carrier so he could stay put. And. Yeah, and that's what he did. He retired as a mail carrier, but, you know, a top math expert to the to the point where there would be conversations where you could, like, I couldn't understand him, right? He couldn't understand himself, right? And, and, and there's many conversations in different aspects of this. But when we played games, whether it was Yahtzee or monopoly or whatever, every game, there was a math based lesson to it, like, which dice you rolled for advantage at Yahtzee, which ones to hold after the first roll. Poker games, pitch games, Rummy, every single game it was, it was game theory. It was math on what was the precise the best role, like Monopoly, the best properties and the probability to get an orange property over other properties and and how much you should spend at certain points of the game. And I realized saying that outline that's that that's not normal. Some people just play yatse and roll the dice and they roll what they want, and some people play Monopoly and just buy the properties they want. That was not how games were played in my household, and it was very applicable to poker and to the collectible card games. Michael Hingson 21:22 Yeah. So how often did you want to buy Boardwalk and Park Place? Chris Dreyer 21:28 Not often. But I mean, so there. That was just how I was brought up. And yeah, and it turned into a lot of what I do today. Michael Hingson 21:42 Actually, I always like free parking. We had a thing where any money and and any kind of thing that you had to pay on all went into the free parking pot. So getting free parking was always fun. Oh yeah, but yeah, I hear what you're saying. I love monopoly and love to even play it against the computer, which was always a kind of a neat thing to do, but played Monopoly against other members of my family. Some we actually made a Well, we took a regular Monopoly board, and I think my father outlined the entire board and all the squares using elmer's glue so that we had raised lines for me to look at. Then we also did things to mark the paper money so I could tell what bills I had and and so on, and even Braille the cards. And I still have that game to this day, very neat, which is kind of cool, but monopoly spun. Chris Dreyer 22:36 Yeah, there's a lot of games that you know, there's no winner. You take my wife wants to play Scrabble all the time, and I'm like, there's just not a winner in Scrabble. Because if I challenge you on a word, and I'm right, you're wrong. You're mad if I beat you, you know, and then if I lose, it's not fulfilling for me. That's one of those games. There's no winner. Michael Hingson 23:02 I have a friend who plays Scrabble with his mother all the time, and and he, I think he loses more than he wins, but he's always proud when he beats her. And he's almost 60, so you know, she's, she's older than he is, but they, they play and have a lot of fun with Scrabble. Chris Dreyer 23:21 That's incredible. That's Michael Hingson 23:22 great. Yeah, it is kind of cool. But anyway, so you eventually decided to go off and go into the entrepreneurial world, and you started your company, or went well, when did you actually start the company? Chris Dreyer 23:37 Started the company officially in 2013 it was attorney rankings.org, that was the original name. Now it's rankings.io, I worked at a few agencies previously, while I was also doing the affiliate marketing, and kind of got to see the agency world of providing, you know, the professional services space. And after working at a few agencies. Thought that I could do it right. I got the confidence from the competence, and that's when I launched it. 2013 we've always been focused on legal. The difference today is primarily, we're focused on a sub niche of legal for personal injury law. And, you know, we work with other practice areas, criminal defense, family law, etc. But really personal injury is the is 85% of our business. Michael Hingson 24:27 So what is it that rankings.io? Does, Chris Dreyer 24:31 yeah, we do digital marketing. We do search engine optimization now, AI search, we do pay per click paid social web design. A lot of performance marketing, I would say more performance, less creative and branding. And that's what we do. We work with the top, the biggest pi firms, personal injury law firms in the country. We're in chiefs, I think every state we work with about. 250 law firms across the country. Michael Hingson 25:03 What made you decide to focus on law in the beginning? Chris Dreyer 25:09 Yeah, I'll say a few reasons. One, I had an experience working with attorneys, and I liked working with them. So there was the like component when I worked at an agency, I had a few firms that would I spoke with, and I enjoyed it. The second thing was, if I'm being honest, the status like I wanted to tell my parents that I did marketing for lawyers, and not just, you know, any industry. And then the other thing is, is I'm very, very, very competitive, and I kept seeing and hearing these reports about more and more attorneys going to law school and and just all this competition for legal and the thing that I differ you hear a lot of coaches and mentors. They'll say, hey, go to the blue ocean. You know, everyone's read the blue ocean book, or, you know, Peter thiel's zero to one, and everyone thinks so, go where there's no competition. And I'm like, That's fine if you're Elon or Peter Thiel or Zuckerberg creating something new, but if you're going into an existing category, you want to go where there is competition, because it demands expertise, and that's the way that I've looked at it. Like, you take the agency perspective, I don't want to go to, you know, lawn care, SEO like, do they really want to do search engine optimization? Do they really have a ton of competition? Maybe that's not a great example. But you get my point where, if you go into the city, there's a ton of personal injury law firms, but there's only a few that can rank at the top. And there's, they're all trying to gather cases from one another, so they want an expert to help them, you know, get that visibility. And that's, that's the mindset that Michael Hingson 26:58 went into it. What strikes me is interesting, though, is that with all of that, you bring a very competitive level to what you do. And I'm not sure that I find that a lot of people necessarily even do that, so you consider even search engine optimization to be a very competitive thing, I don't want to say sport, but you consider it all about competition, and you want to really bring the best and the most significant aspects of it to what you do. And that clearly has to show up when you're talking about Inc ranking you in the top companies for eight years in a row. Chris Dreyer 27:47 Yeah, it's very status orientation. You know, that's why I like working with trial attorneys. There's a winner and loser in court, and there's only one top position in Google or on these llms, and it's, who's gonna win, who's the best? Yeah, and it's right there for everyone. Here's here's the tally. Everyone can see who's the best. And I've always loved that. I think I heard a podcast recently by John Morgan. He's the founder of Morgan, Morgan, right? Of course. And you know, he's always a character and funny to listen to, but, yeah, he talks about being insatiable. Like, how did you grow this? He's like, Well, I'm insatiable. I I want to continue to grow. And for me, it's, it's the exact same thing. It's like, I'm insatiable. We hit a milestone. I want the next milestone. It is the game that I'm playing. I am playing like my hobby is my business. I enjoy it. I look forward to a Monday. It rewards me mentally. I enjoy the people I work with. And that's that's how we're at you know, Inc, 5008 years in a row, we'll definitely be on the ninth year next year, due to our growth this year. And it's that's just, that's just how I treat it. It's just a big game. And, you know, like any game, you play Sim City, whatever, you get a little bit more money, you get a little bit more buildings, right? You do a little bit better, you hire more talent, you expand your capabilities, and you just, if you don't stop, you're going to Michael Hingson 29:22 continue to grow. But it's a game in the mathematical sense, and it's it's a game in the the productive sense of what you're trying to do is, isn't the game just, although you obviously have to have fun in what you do, otherwise you wouldn't enjoy doing it. But it's a game in the mathematical sense of the word, oh, 100% Chris Dreyer 29:44 and so many people don't understand what I'm about to say. But like, every move that you make is a move based upon leverage in some capacity, yeah, and you take, because our time is all limited. You take. I'll give you some examples, like from a from a distribution perspective, hosting my podcast or being on your podcast is going to have more listeners than if I go speak on stage, if I go speak on stage now that that has its own benefits of authority and and different you know, belly to belly relationships from a trust perspective, but from a distribution perspective, I would be better off doing more podcasts than I would speaking on stage, sure. So there's an advantage there, right? And then there's also advantages through pricing arbitrage, and it's if, if I hire labor and talent in in the Midwest, and I pay them above average fees and salaries, and I pay my employees well, but compare that to New York or California. And I think some people, you know, these are things that they don't talk about, but when you start to look at leverage closely, it's everywhere. Capital, economies of scale, if I you know, there's leverage based upon my my buying power in certain areas, and that's what I look for. It's an interesting way to make decisions. Is based upon that leverage component. Michael Hingson 31:20 Do you think that that works in other kinds of arenas, other than just what you do? Chris Dreyer 31:27 Oh, I won 1,000% yes, yeah. It works in you could see it. You know, the closest would be, closest arena would be sports. There's so many, whether it's the salary caps or the talent of one person's labor based, you know, what they can do from a utilization or capacity versus another one's people talk about it on the business side of like, you know, You have one software programmer is worth, potentially 1,000x another one just because of that individual's capabilities. So it's literally everywhere, and it's also dissecting different scenarios into fractional leverage. So I'll take give you a different way of thinking about this. Is like, you take a an SEO specialist, a top tier SEO specialist might be 100 200 grand, right, technician, right? But you you break down their capabilities into the smaller parts. You know someone that just writes, someone that just does the title tags and the website, and someone that just does the links and that, like you can assemble, that individuals that that superstars talent through the FRAC breaking it down from a fractional perspective. It's just a big game of puzzles and how you get there and you look at like what your competitors are doing and how you can, I wouldn't say, exploit in a negative way, but, but what I mean is how you can take advantage in a positive way to to help your business succeed, right? Michael Hingson 33:15 Well, do you so if, if you're playing a game like football, of course, everybody, every team, wants to crush the other team, and it's all about winning and beating the heck out of the other guy. Is that really the way you view it, in terms of the game, as you play it, and do you enjoy being able to just crush the competition? Or is it a different mindset than that? Chris Dreyer 33:42 That's a really good question, because I am an abundance mindset. I don't think everything is a zero sum game. It's, I'll tell you something super nerdy. I was talking to my chief of staff the other day that he's we're big gamers, big nerds. And he, we were talking about Warhammer 40k and the dwarves in that game have a book of grudges. So anybody that that goes against the dwarves, they they're listed in the book of grudges, right? Yeah. And it's like all the dwarves are trying to, you know, right? This wrong. And I kind of look like that. I'm like, treat people respect like, you know, abundance zero, you know, like, abundance mentality. Do the referral thing until it's like, okay, you've done X, Y and Z, and I could give you examples of x, y, z, and it's like, okay, well, you're not my friend. You're not my ally, so now you are a true competitor by all since you know, by all definitions, right? That's how I've treated it. Michael Hingson 34:48 And so it isn't the joy of just beating everybody in sight. No, which is different, which is cool, because certainly. I would, I would also bet, though, that you have people who are competitors, but they're not unfriendly, so you can absolutely, yeah, you can develop Chris Dreyer 35:10 working relationships. Rattle off, and we have great conversations. We're friends, and people are surprised when they see us, and we're friendly, and it's like, no, it's like, we have families, we have life. We want to do good work. We want to and it's so you can absolutely have that too. Yeah. Michael Hingson 35:27 Why did you decide to specifically choose personal injury Chris Dreyer 35:33 for me? And it's this is turning into the math conversation. But really, I looked at our revenue, and it was like over 70% of our revenue. Was from less than 50% of our clientele. And it was a clear directional signal to pursue this area. And that's it was the math like, these are our best clients. They pay the most, they stay the longest we could do the best work. Also the PI space is the Super Bowl. Is the major leagues. In the legal arena, it's, it's very difficult to rank. There's a lot of competition versus, you know, I get a family law attorney. I don't care what market you're in, Los Angeles, it's like a sneeze to get them the number one or two? Yeah, it's and I like that. I like the competition. I like having to work at it and be creative and think about different things to try to obtain that top position. Michael Hingson 36:33 Yeah, well, so I would, I would presume that John Morgan's happy with you. Chris Dreyer 36:40 I, you know, I had Dan Morgan as a keynote for my 2024 conference, his son. And I haven't personally talked to John. I think he's well, he says he's retired, but he's not really retired, yeah, right. The I couldn't work with Morgan and Morgan, I can have a great relationship with them, but I can't work with them because they're in every market, and my I would, they would be my only client, so that's why, but certainly have a great relationship. I've got a text relationship with Dan, but yeah, they, I think they do everything in house. Michael Hingson 37:20 Anyways, you don't want to be the consularity for Morgan and Morgan, in other words, Chris Dreyer 37:25 your only client, right, right? That would put a lot of risk on the old client concentration problem, Michael Hingson 37:33 and it would, but still. So what does it mean for a law firm to dominate Google's organic search. And I guess the other question is, why is that the legal battleground that personal injury lawyers can't really ignore? Chris Dreyer 37:53 There's, there's so much here. Okay, where do I go? That's a lot of take. You take any channel, broadcast television has been the main vehicle for channel for distribution. It's the lowest CPMs cost per 1000. The distribution is very wide, because an individual doesn't know typically, when they're going to be in an accident, right? So you got to have a lot of reach and touch a lot of individuals. There's also radio and billboards. But typically, even if they watch you on television or hear you on the radio or what have you, they still convert. They go to Google to make that conversion that go to the website. Typically, it's not always and and things are changing due to these llms and the native experiences on platform. But even today, it's still the final destination before they contact a firm. So it's really important that you show up at the top of Google to capture all of those opportunities that you've advertised for in other mediums. Michael Hingson 39:09 How do you do that? Chris Dreyer 39:12 Well, so you know, I'll say, I'll try to simplify for the audience. Let's just keep it really, think of like a Venn diagram of, you know, the three circles overlaying and you've got the middle. You have to do all three. The first one is you have to have excellent content. You have to have, you know, if you're an auto accident attorney, you have to have content about auto accidents. You have to have, you know, you have to have content that targets phrases and words that consumers will search for, right? It starts with the content. It has to be thematically and topically relevant. Has to be excellent content. The second component would be related to. Views. You got to get Google reviews to show up on in the LSA, the local services ads location, you have to get reviews to show up in Google Map Pack. You need reviews now on Yelp to show up on and be discovered on these different llms, particularly a chat GPT. And just due to how okay for the SEO nerds listening, let me explain, because typically when you get reviews on Yelp and when you get reviews or recommendations on Facebook, they aggregate that information to other sites, which is then the listicles that form the basis of discovery for these llms. So you got to have a review background. So content reviews and then links. Google, the way that they differentiated, again, way against lo AOL was they use links as a categorization method. So if you're trying to win an election, you want to get as many votes as possible. If you're trying to win the first page of Google, you want to get as many high quality links as possible. High quality being authoritative, relevant, trustworthy, you know, sites that get a lot of traffic, so you need great content, lot of reviews and links. That is the very 8020, high end summer summary of of how to rank in Google search and on the llms, yeah. Michael Hingson 41:24 Well, and how does LinkedIn fit into what you do? Chris Dreyer 41:29 LinkedIn is a bit different. I you know LinkedIn more B to B platform. I think if you're a business attorney or a B to B firm, it's an excellent channel. I use it from a distribution perspective. I get a lot of reach. I get a lot of followers on there. A lot of attorneys congregate on there. And it's a great, you know, channel for recruiting talent, and it's cited frequently if you have some type of reputation perspective that you want to control around your name. LinkedIn typically ranks in one of the top three positions for your name if you have your profile set up properly. So yeah, it's, it's, it's got great distribution from a leverage perspective, and, you know, has other applications as well. Michael Hingson 42:15 If you were starting a law firm today, or you were advising someone who's starting a law firm, how would you deal with and start their marketing efforts? How would you organize marketing for them? Chris Dreyer 42:28 Yeah, in the beginning I would, I would do almost all performance marketing. I would not do. I would do very little with brands, because you need to get on your your cash acceleration cycle is very poor. From a PI perspective. I'm always thinking from an injury law firm perspective, because, you know, if you get an auto accident case by the time they get treatment and go through the whole process, you know, it could be 12 to 18 months before you get paid. So you know, I would think about performance marketing, Facebook ads, Google ads, LSA, SEO, a lot of the ads platforms that are, you know, very performance driven. That would be the majority of my investment. Facebook ads. So in a vacuum, you know, different markets are, there's different channels that are more effective. But in a vacuum, I would say today, right now, Facebook ads would be the best platform, the best channel for that, Michael Hingson 43:29 because so many, because it has such a high volume of viewers, or what Chris Dreyer 43:34 they're well, it's just the cost per lead. The amount that you pay on that platform to reach your target prospect is going to be cheaper than say, you go to Google ads and you're paying $600 a click for a phrase, or, you know, it's just now, there's, again, this is in a vacuum. There's very effective Google Ad strategies you can get, you know, creative with performance, Max campaigns and and different strategies. But I would say just in general, Facebook ads out of the gate would be one that I would start with, and I would start the SEO early, just because it takes time to develop. Michael Hingson 44:14 Yeah, well, that makes sense, and it does take a long time, and I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand how all of that works, but it's still something that they should, should deal with Chris Dreyer 44:28 1,000% and, you know, it's, it's a game of, it's a long game, but it, you know, even SEO can be on a shorter time horizon, if, if You're, like, if you target Car Accident Lawyer in that phrase and that segment, then sure, yeah, 12 to 18 months is, you know, you know, even two years before you start to get some visibility. But you target dog bites, you target, you know, some other case types that aren't as competitive like you can get traction sooner. Michael Hingson 45:00 Hmm, well, and that kind of brings up the question you You talk a lot about, and you wrote a book about niche. Why is it that going into like a smaller niche can yield sort of a greater opportunity, or by narrowing focus, you're creating bigger opportunities? Why is that? So? Chris Dreyer 45:22 What comes top of mind? Some of the biggest, the most important reason is it all centers around this word focus. When you focus in a single area, you become better. Well, because you were better, you can you can at your you can charge more because you're worth it. The other thing is, is when you focus on a single area, you you can create, create repeatable processes, and everything is not bespoke when it comes in. So you can set up your internal productization of a certain area. You it makes training easier by immersion. So there's a lot of benefits, even even the perception aspect of it, right? So when you think of like, who's better, a generalist versus a brain surgeon, you think a brain surgeon is a specialist. And you think, Well, who do you think, just offhand, whose fees would be higher? Well, you think the brain surgeon would would charge higher fees. And so from a perception perspective, and when you're thinking about trust, the that's the other one, right? You would think from a trust perspective, they would be more qualified because they're in this certain area. So, and when we're trying to convert someone in sales, it's always a conversation based upon trust. So those are some of the main advantages, the one heavy, heavy disadvantage. Disadvantage is Tam, total addressable market. It's you focus on personal injury. You're at 50, 60,000 firms. You focus on all law firms. United States, you're at 400,000 law firms. So there's trade offs for you know, there's pros and cons on both sides well Michael Hingson 47:03 and and that makes sense, but there is a lot of merit to the to the whole concept of specializing, and you've proven it with what you do, and you continue to be pretty successful about it. And then that makes a lot of sense, but you also do something else that I think is interesting. You've written a book, niching up, you've got a podcast, you have other things that you do, and, of course, just the company itself, but you put all of that together, and all of that not only has to help your brand, but it makes you more visible in the marketplace overall. Don't you think? Chris Dreyer 47:42 Yeah, it certainly does, and it is our flywheel, right? It's somebody that's on my podcast could be a potential quote in my book, and I have a personal injury lawyer marketing book, right? And there's quotes from the pod. I have now a quarterly magazine that goes out. We could cherry pick a couple episodes, you know, to include in the magazine. We have retreats that are quarterly. They're, they're in person that, because we have a community, they're easier to to fill. We have a yearly event for personal injury law firms called, you know, Pim con. So it's all this, this flywheel that kind of compounds over time due to the community aspect, Michael Hingson 48:25 but people obviously react well to it, because you continue to be successful. Chris Dreyer 48:32 Yeah, and I think the biggest thing for me is I am I am not the the expert. I am bringing on the experts in their field, the people that are eating their own dog food, so to speak, right? They're practicing what they preach. It is, I can orchestrate a great conversation because I know the space and can ask very specific questions based upon my knowledge. But I'm bringing on, you know, Dan Morgan's on the pod. I've had, let's see Morris Bart. You know, I've had frank Azar in Colorado. I've had the biggest of the big pi attorneys on sharing what works for them, which, which is very valuable, because it's not, you know, some, you know, a consultant or me or whoever, speaking about like, Oh, this is how you can grow a law firm. It's no this is the owner of a law firm explaining how he or she is growing their law firm right, Michael Hingson 49:31 and providing that advice for other people, which also helps you gain trust, which is pretty cool. What's the best way for an attorney who wants to stand out to truly build authority in the market? Chris Dreyer 49:50 Well, if you're if you're b Look, okay, so there's a couple types of firms. If you're a trial attorney and you want to get peer referrals, I would say. See, I would say start a podcast would be one of the best ways, you know, interview your peer, interview other attorneys around the country, talk shop, you know, speak at C les. You know, do the those types of aspects it, you know, a podcast. I'm not saying it's not good for B to C, but it's, it has to be a different type of podcast. So I think, I think B to B, if you're a litigation attorney, a podcast would be great if it's B to C. That's, that's tricky. I think I think probably social media in some capacity, but really it's just sharing your knowledge on a platform and being consistent. Michael Hingson 50:51 Yeah, consistency counts for a lot, and it is something you can you can show is being relevant in almost any kind of business. I mean, look at McDonald's. One thing you can generally tell about McDonald's is that their quarter pounder is going to taste the same everywhere, and it's going to be the same and, and, and companies and people can learn a lot by seeing a company that truly develops that level of trust, 51:24 yeah, couldn't agree more. Michael Hingson 51:26 And that's pretty important to do, to be able to get someone who is going to earn that trust by vigorously working to earn that trust. And so there's something to be said for that, needless to say, so you've built a very large company. What would you say are some of the pivotal moments that sort of helped shape your trajectory? I know you've talked about some things, but what, what kind of really, are the things that stand out that really helped you create all of that? Chris Dreyer 52:00 I think in the beginning, I did a lot of free work, and had to prove my work, prove my abilities. I think so many people just want to charge a lot out of the gate. And I think there's when you do things for people, they're more willing to reciprocate. And it from an application perspective, it makes you better. So I did a lot of free work early, a ton of free work. I took a lot of jobs or contracts that maybe not, maybe for certain, that I wouldn't take today, that were just not perfect, but like they were my opportunities that I didn't, you know, let them pass by. I think hiring the right people, having super high standards is incredibly important, people that share your values. In the beginning, I used to, every time I heard a speech or taught speech speaker talk about culture values, I used to kind of roll my eyes and say I just didn't get to get to work, right? But now I know it's more important than ever that they share my values, right? Because they're important to me, and that's how you move forward. And I think the other one, if I had to say, the bigger I get, the more important good data, is to make decisions like, if I just don't have good data, it's very difficult. I'm just guessing and and the better the data, the better decisions well. Michael Hingson 53:32 So the the other thing that comes to mind when you talked about doing a lot of free work and jobs that you wouldn't necessarily take today, I don't know how much it really entered into your mindset, but think of all the knowledge you gathered by doing that that you might not have ever gotten. Yeah. Chris Dreyer 53:49 I mean, that's true, and a lot of other people wouldn't have done those jobs, so that's kind of some unique perspectives. Michael Hingson 53:56 Yeah, I when I hired sales people, one of the first things I always told them was, you're coming into this be a student for at least the first year. Don't hesitate to ask questions of your customers, because they're not if you gain their trust at all. They're not in it to see you fail. They want you to succeed, but they want to be able to trust you. And so there's a lot to be said for being a student, asking questions and learning from that. I agree. I agree, which makes a lot of sense. What's the biggest misconception that lawyers typically have about marketing? Chris Dreyer 54:33 They underestimate how many dollars and what it takes for someone to actually be memorable or build a brand. I talked to, I heard Alex hermosi talking recently about, you know, no one really knew who Jennifer Lawrence was before the mockingbird movie, and they spent $50 million on advertising for that movie. And then, oh, suddenly, everyone knows who she is. But it took $50 million To do so. I think a lot of times people think they oversaturate a channel when they haven't even scratched the possibilities or the capabilities of a particular channel. Michael Hingson 55:10 How do you help lawyers break through that misconception? I agree with what you're saying. I hear it a lot, in so many ways, but how do you break through that and get them to understand the value. Chris Dreyer 55:22 It's a dance, yeah, you know, I try to get them to look at the blended cost to acquire a case, as opposed to, you know, the CAC to LTV ratio, versus trying to pinpoint each individual channel and but it is try to try to solve with data and proof over, you know, guesses, but or promises, but it is always a song and dance. Michael Hingson 55:52 The data and proof is out there. If people can learn to look for it, it's, it's, the reality is, mostly it's not a guess, but you have to know where to look or learn how to find the data to be able to get the answers that you need to demonstrate that marketing is just as valuable as anything else. I mean, there's so many strong lessons about marketing. We talked about Morgan and Morgan, but think about it, he's out there doing TV commercials all the time, and I'm sure that that's helping his company. He and Ultima continuing to to grow, and now they got the boys all in it. And the reality is they've demonstrated that they understand something about what marketing is all about. I remember back a long time ago when it was taboo for lawyers to even advertise. And then a couple of companies out here started to do it. And finally, people realized there's a lot of value in marketing. Chris Dreyer 56:50 Absolutely. And Michael, I should have said this in advance. I've got a I got a hard stop, I got a I got a hat, I got a client call here in two minutes. Michael Hingson 56:59 Well, then let me just ask, is there anything else that you want to add? Or how can people reach out to you if they'd like to do that? Chris Dreyer 57:06 Well, first of all, I really enjoyed our conversation, so thank you for having me. Yeah, you know, for anybody that has a question or wants to connect with me, the best way to get in touch with me is by email. I'm an inbox zero guy. It's Chris, C, H, R, i s@rankings.io I'm most active on LinkedIn. You'll just do a search for Chris Dreyer, and you'll find me cool. Michael Hingson 57:29 Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for tuning in today, wherever you are, I'd love to hear from you. Love your thoughts on the podcast. Give us an email at Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, also, you can listen to any of our podcasts. They're all available. And you can find us at Michael hingson.com/podcast and you can see and hear all the episodes that you want from there. Please give us a five star review and great rating wherever you're listening and watching us, we value it a lot. And if you know anyone who you think might be able to be a good guest, love to hear from you. Chris, you as well. If you know anybody else who you think ought to be a guest, I'd love to definitely get your help to bring them on, because we're looking for all the people who want to come on and show that we're all more unstoppable than we think. But again, I want to just thank you for being here today. Chris Dreyer 58:20 Thank you, Michael. I really enjoyed it. Michael Hingson 58:26 Thank you for being here with me on unstoppable mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about if you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others. I have a free gift for you. Head over to Michael hingson.com and download my free ebook, blinded by fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening, keep learning, keep questioning and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset you.
Phillip and Brian get deep on a week when everything felt a little unhinged: Shopify's AI sidekick started building custom apps, Iran allegedly took out AWS data centers mid-Claude-outage, and the McDonald's CEO went mega-viral just days after Phillip prophesied it. Underneath the chaos, a throughline emerges: the things we've used to measure value (view counts, credit card rewards, third-party apps, and AI contracts) are quietly expiring. Culture is first. Then comes commerce. This SKU Is Delicious Key takeaways: Shopify Sidekick can now build one-off apps on demand, raising real questions about the future of third-party SaaS. AI geopolitics is here: data centers are now strategic infrastructure, and the "human in the loop" question has military stakes. Meta's move to invoicing ends years of free credit card rewards for brands running paid social, — and that party's been winding down anyway. MrBeast's long-form view counts are down 50% YoY, even with heavy paid promotion; the algorithm has shifted to interest-based, not subscriber-based. Media buyers optimizing for CPMs are chasing non-real traffic. — Rrecovering a sense of propriety is the only way back. In-Show Mentions: How MrBeast Dominated 2025 Using Advertising Phillip's Big Arch burger virality prediction Get on the list for the Future Commerce x Shoptalk After Party Associated Links: Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
This week in the guest chair, Symone Austin shares her powerful journey from being laid off to building a thriving YouTube platform.After recording and posting her layoff conversation, her video went viral and became the turning point in her entrepreneurial journey. In this episode, she breaks down how she built multiple income streams through YouTube ad revenue, brand partnerships, digital products, virtual assistant work, and strategic financial decisions like bringing on a roommate.If you've been navigating uncertainty, considering content creation, or wondering how to turn a setback into leverage, this episode will show you how.Highlights Include 00:00 – Recording the layoff conversation that changed everything04:30 – Growing from 10K to 60K+ subscribers in one year08:20 – Making $5,900 in one month from YouTube ad revenue13:00 – Cutting expenses and surviving without touching savings18:10 – Turning skills into income: photography, digital products, VA work24:00 – Why personal finance has one of the highest CPMs on YouTube29:00 – Replacing a corporate salary through content creation35:00 – The reality of working 7 days a week as a full-time creator38:00 – Getting a roommate as a financial reset strategy43:00 – Navigating job offers after deciding to go all-inLinks Mentioned in This EpisodeLife and Numbers YouTube ChannelRead Successful Failure by KevOnStageWatch Symone's YouTube video "I Got Laid Off From My 6 Figure Tech Job"Save the Date: Start the Podcast That Builds Your Exit Plan (Friday, March 13)Watch & ListenWatch this episode on YouTube and listen on all podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/side-hustle-pro/id1126021323Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13qDj08lBR4ymzGhXIKy8tYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/sidehustleproAnnouncementsIf you're ready to build a podcast that becomes your exit plan, attend my next live class: Start the Podcast That Builds Your Exit PlanSave your seat here: https://sidehustlepro.lpages.co/your-first-1000-downloads/Social MediaYouTube: Life and Numbers: https://www.youtube.com/lifeandnumbersInstagram: @lifeandnumbers: http://instagram.com/lifeandnumbersSide Hustle Pro – @sidehustlepro#SideHustlePro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
I've spent over $15M on high-ticket ads since 2013. And I can tell you — if your ads aren't converting, it's not your CPMs, your CTR, or the algorithm. It's your message. In this episode, I break down the "Trust Funnel" — the same system behind nine figures in sales — and why trust is the only metric that actually matters. The Trust Funnel (3 Steps) The Ad — Your ad's job isn't cheap clicks. It's to hit the deep pain your ideal client is obsessing over at 3 AM. Specificity and empathy beat clever headlines every time. The Authority Video — Don't teach tactics. Show them you understand their problem better than they can describe it themselves. That's what books calls. The Call — If the first two steps work, they show up mostly sold. No hard closing — just a conversation to see if there's a fit. The 3 Trust Killers I See Every Day Too vague — "Want to grow your business?" is wallpaper. Name the exact person, problem, and outcome. No stakes — If you don't make the cost of staying stuck crystal clear, they scroll past. No differentiation — Sound like every other coach and they'll lump you in with everyone who burned them before. The Bottom Line We're in a trust recession. Your ideal clients have been burned by overpromising coaches and garbage programs. No amount of funnel optimization breaks through that — only a message that makes them feel genuinely understood. "Trust is not built by being relatable and fun. It's built by telling people the uncomfortable truth about why they're stuck and showing them the way out."
If you've ever considered starting a podcast, a YouTube channel, Patreon or all of the above…this episode could make you some money and definitely save you a lot of time. This is the real breakdown of how creators make money "just talking"… and why most people start podcasting with the wrong expectations.
Apply to Work With Tier 11: https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now If your campaigns aren't scaling as you'd like and CPMs keep rising, it's time to refresh your social media marketing strategy. In today's episode, we explain in detail why creative diversification is the key to succeeding with Meta ads in 2026 and beyond. We discuss how to break free from old, hacky methods like the Michigan Method and explain how the Meta algorithm is designed to do the heavy lifting, if you let it. We talk about the importance of running multiple, varied ads to speak to different segments of your audience and provide real examples of how this works in practice.If you want to know how to evolve your approach, increase engagement, and set up campaigns that actually scale, you won't want to miss this one. You'll understand why "one-size-fits-all" advertising no longer cuts it and what to do instead.In This Episode:- How Facebook ads have evolved over time- Creative diversification explained- How to create different ICPs for Meta ads- Designing the right creative angle for each audience- Looking for ad hacks vs developing a strong brand- Final thoughts on outdated advertising strategiesMentioned in the Episode:Creative Diversification Playbook: https://perpetualtraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Creative-Diversification-Playbook-Practitioner-Guidance.pdf Meta's Ad Creative Guidelines: https://web.facebook.com/business/m/small-business/creative-differentiation?_rdc=1&_rdr# Previous episode on the Michigan Method: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/scale-your-facebook-ad-campaign/ Previous episode with Corey Quinn: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/episode-721-super-secret-formula-corey-quinn-scaled-scorpion-agency-10m-to-200m/ Listen to This Episode on Your Favorite Podcast Channel:Follow and listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491 Follow and listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/59lhtIWHw1XXsRmT5HBAuK Subscribe and watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1We Appreciate Your Support!Visit our website: https://perpetualtraffic.com/ Follow us on X: https://x.com/perpetualtraf Connect with Ralph...
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